Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Double Trouble

Living where it's cold, I have a small collection of fleece headbands.

I'm trying to make fleece scraps from another sewing project into more headbands.

My favorite headband is from EMS. Love the shape and fit!


The edge trimming on the EMS headband is not something I want to duplicate on my homemade headbands, both because my sewing skills are somewhat lacking and those edges aren't as comfortable as the hem on this Columbia headband.


The hem may have been done on a serger, but an expert seamstress in my circle of weavers told me I could probably get similar results using a special needle, called a twin needle or double needle, on my sewing machine.


I made a couple of quick patterns out of velum from Staples, cut out some headbands and was ready to figure out hems.


I already had a twin needle in my sewing box, like this one.


I don't know if this is entirely correct, but I put two spools of thread (one of which I hand wound) on the spool holder, and threaded the machine with both strands.


I fiddled with the tension a little, to keep the headband stretchy, but the back of my hem isn't exactly textbook. More fiddling with the tension probably would have fixed that.


These hems are fine for my purposes - which are just to keep my ears warm when I'm playing outside!


One can never have too many aqua fleece headbands, right?

2 comments:

Leigh said...

What a great tutorial. If the method worked for you, then you have success!

I'm happy to answer any questions, whether they are post related or not. But about the shawl, I have to be honest in saying that it hasn't been worn at all and so has never needed laundering. One trick I learned for washing fringe though, is to loosely baste it in netting. I get the cheap kind and fold it over the fringe, running a loose basting stitch to keep it attached. Then I wash and have had fairly good success preserving fringe.

That particular cotton flake yarn would probably fall apart with a rough wash and dry, so I wouldn't want to take a chance without protecting it.

Life Looms Large said...

Leigh,

Thanks for coming over here and answering my question!!!

(For anyone wondering what we're talking about, Leigh has a beautiful shawl on her blog and I asked her a question about how the fringe held up.)

Just mulling over various yarns I've got on hand, figuring out some project possibilities!