Woven Headbands

You would probably agree with me that almost every post on social media from your fellow sewists is a display of the awesome masks and caps they are making to aid the heroes that are working the front lines of this war against Covid-19! If someone knows you sew then they’ll tag you in every and all requests that they see on social media, or at least this has been my experience, and honestly I find it overwhelming! Where do you start? Which group actually needs your contributions the most? Which pattern is best? Are all styles universally accepted in the healthcare industry? See, this self proclaimed “over-thinker” heads into overdrive and then what always happens when I get in this overwhelmed mode happened….. NOTHING!

Nothing that was until a friend, Tracey, messaged me and asked if I could make some headbands for the awesome nurses on the Pediatrics floor at our local Children’s Hospital! Tracey and her two awesome Pugs, Igor and Zombie, spend lots of time there as Igor and Zombie are Certified St. John Ambulance Therapy Dogs! That was all it took for me to get involved! I quickly agreed to help out, even though we’re unbelievably busy at Funky Monkey and we’re working tons of hours, I knew I wanted to do this! I told my friend and Wendy and she volunteered to make some too!

The next “issue” was what pattern to use, and without wanting to fall into “over-thinker” mode yet again, I quickly took to google and one of the first patterns that showed up miraculously seemed to be a winner, by the title AND the content….“Best, Comfiest Button Headband for Nurses and Other Medical People” by yogilynda! This pattern is super simple and before the evening was out, I had made 20, and so had Wendy!

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It was a great scrap buster too, only requiring small pieces of fabric. Probably the hardest thing to find is the elastic but since it calls for the wider 3/4″ or 1″, it’s perhaps slightly easier to find than the smaller ones that everyone is using for the masks. In my mind I envisioned matching the buttons to the fabrics but that quickly became a problem when I realized I don’t have that many larger buttons on hand, let alone in every colour in the rainbow (just to clarify, the buttons are there for the elastic to go over instead of putting it around their ears which become irritated from the elastic). So I got over that and just went with it, telling myself that everyone will focus on the fun fabrics instead of the mismatched buttons! The pattern did have you putting a dart on the top on the forehead but after trying it on, I didn’t think it was needed so I just skipped that part!

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So here we are, me and Norman, with all 40 headbands that Wendy and I made! We’ve dropped them off at Tracey’s and she’ll get them to the Nurse’s. I just hope they help in some small way to these amazing Nurses and Doctor’s that are true Heroes.

Have a great week! Happy Sewing, and stay safe and healthy….stay home and sew!

Shawna