Springy DIY: How to Make Fabric Flower Headbands

$3
30 Minutes
Easy

Today we’re talking about how to make fabric flower headbands.


Now, you can’t tell by the 2 1/2 feet of snow in my backyard at the time, but spring is coming. In fact while through my daughter’s room yesterday and I found a treasure. It was a DIY flower headband I made for one of her animals some time ago. I had a little inspiration lightning bolt and put together this easy to sew tutorial for you.


These simple fabric flower headbands are a quick little project you can make from scrap fabric. These would make a great wearable addition to an Easter basket. This is a fun, anything goes project that’s suitable for beginning sewists on up. Make your fabric flowers simple or make them as elaborate as you want, you cannot mess this up!


First we’ll talk about what you need to make your DIY flower headband. After that, we’ll walk through how to make fabric flower headbands step by step.

Table of Contents


How to make fabric flower headbands: Supplies


  • Foldover elastic (FOE), any color
  • Scraps of sweater knit fabrics or an old sweater
  • Mesh or silk scraps
  • Universal 80/12 sewing machine needle
  • Embroidery thread
  • Embroidery needle
  • Seed beads (optional)
  • Beading needle (optional)
  • Scissors


What are the best fabrics for DIY flower headbands?


A DIY flower headband is an excellent project for using up your weird fabric scraps, but you can’t use just any fabric.


You want to choose a fabric that has some BODY to it.


What does that mean? Well, if it flops over, skip it. You want your flowers to hold some shape, and a drapey floppy fabric won’t cut it.


I designed this project for knit fabrics. Here I’m using a variety of sweater knit fabric scraps.

You can cut up an old sweater. The green daisies you’ll see later on were from a toddler sweater my daughter outgrew. It was stained enough I couldn’t donate or pass it on, but there’s plenty of usable fabric here for this kind of project.


If you don’t have sweater knits on hand, try sweatshirt fleece, or heavier knit fabrics like ponte or French terry.


You can also make these flowers from denim or linen, but know that the edges will fray.


If you have more woven scrap fabrics on hand, check out how to make your own denim flowers for a different style of flower to add to your headband than the one I’m sharing here.


How to make your own denim flowers


Pretty up your denim scraps with this easy DIY.

Measuring your head for elastic


A headband that falls off your head is a sad one, so don’t skip this step!


Wrap a piece of foldover elastic around your head until it feels comfortable. You’ll want it to be stretched just slightly so it doesn’t ploop off your head in the wearing.

Here’s a little table that’ll give you a good basic idea of how much elastic you’ll need depending on who you’re making your DIY flower headband for. Note that you can’t always cut a headband shorter, so no worries if you’re a little generous with the sizing out of the gate.


Foldover elastic is quite forgiving and insanely comfortable to wear.


Just don’t make it too tight and you’ll be good.


Newborn12″3-12 months13-14″child14-15″teen15-17″adult18″ or more


With all the nitty gritty out of the way, let’s get into how to make fabric flower headbands.


Sewing your DIY fabric headbands


Cutting circles for your fabric flowers


Cut several circles of your fabrics. Don’t be too perfect here.


Cut rough circles of about 3 sizes.

If you’d like, cut a few smaller circles from mesh or silk. These lighter weight fabrics are too floppy on their own to make a full flower the way we’re going to do this here, but they will add some extra texture and visual interest.


From here you can either stack your circles in similar sizes or start thinking about how you want to stack them when you sew them.


Sewing the first row of petals


Lay several of the largest size of your circles on top of the elastic. If you’re making a DIY flower headband for a newborn, just one flower is probably good.

For a larger flower headband crown, 5 flowers is a good number.


Set your sewing machine for a zigzag stitch with a width of 4.0 mm and a length of 1.5mm.


Stitch through the flower petals and the elastic straight down the middle of the elastic.


Stacking more petals


Stack several more petals on top of your first row. I like to sew through 2-3 petals at a time.


Once you’ve stacked your petals, change your zigzag stitch to a width of 1.0mm and a length of 1.5mm.

Stitch in a rough circle through all the layers on each flower.


Keep stacking and stitching more petals until you like the look of your flower. Leave the very top petal you want to add on each flower unstitched for the moment.


Finishing your flowers


To finish off a flower, thread up your embroidery needle with embroidery floss. Use all 6 strands and tie a knot at the end of the thread.


Insert the needle through one of the lower petals, then poke it up to the top petal, adding the last petal to cover all your previous stitching.


Poke the needle back down about 1/2″ away through 2-3 layers to make a small stitch.

Bring the needle back up and down this way to make 2 overlapping Xs.


As you finish the last stitch, bring the thread down through one of the lower layers and tie off your thread. Repeat for the other flowers.

If you’d like, thread up a beading needle and stitch on a few seed beads in the center of your flower.


Sew the elastic ends


To finish off your DIY flower headband, wrap the headband around your head, overlapping the elastic ends so that the elastic is firm.

Use your hand to pinch the elastic ends together, then take it to your machine.


Stitch the ends together in a small rectangle where the ends overlap. Stitch a full rectangle, then overlap your last stitches by stitching over the first stitches you sewed here. This will keep everything nice and secure.

Wear your DIY flower headband and welcome in Spring!

Elizabeth Farr is the writer behind the Elizabeth Made This blog where she shares helpful sewing tips, step by step sewing tutorials and videos to help you explore your creativity through sewing. She has written sewing Eguides and patterns, been a featured teacher at Rebecca Page’s Sewing Summit and Jennifer Maker’s Holiday Maker Fest and her work has appeared in Seamwork and Altered Couture magazines. She also created a line of refashioned garments for SEWN Denver. When her sewing machine isn’t humming, she’s playing and teaching violin, and hanging around a good strategic board game with her husband and 4 kids.


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