Flower Headband

Jessie saw this headband in a shop and decided she would get me to make her one instead of buying it.  So she took a sneaky phone pic and emailled it to me (modelled here by Ruth, our other sister, who had just had her wisdom teeth out - hence the chipmunk cheeks).  I had a go at producing my own version.

It's pretty simple to make but for the record the pattern is:

Cast on +/- 60 stitches.  This varies a lot depending on the weight of the wool and the size of the needles.  To be safe I usually do a few rows, pull it off the needles, measure it on my head and then either unravel it and start again or pick up all the stitches and continue if it's magically the right size.

1st 5 (or so) rows - knit one, purl one.  On the wrong side, knit all the knit stitches and purl all the purl stitches.  Can do more than 5 rows if you want the ribbed section bigger.

Row 5 - knit to end of row

Row 6 - purl to end of row

Repeat until the headband is about the thickness you want (again, depends on wool weight & needles, I think for this one it was about 8-10 rows).

Last 5 rows - as per 1st 5 rows.

Then you just sew the two ends together.  For the flower I followed the pattern here except I added a tiny flower in the middle to make it look exactly like the one on the headband above.  For the tiny flower: chain 5, slip stitch into 1st chain to make a circle.  In the circle, work (sc, ch1, dc, ch1) until you can't cram any more stitches on and then sl stitch back into the start.  You could just as easily do only dc's, a circle in the middle would also work.  Or a button or something.  Whatever you like!  I haven't really experimented.

I used Moda Vera Shiver wool in grey and 3.5mm needles.  But you can do it with pretty much any weight wool I reckon.

Here's my version:

Jessie says it tends to stretch a bit after a few wears but it's pretty easy to fix - all you do is unpick your seam and sew it up again overlapping further.

After I'd made it I found a picture of Whitney Port wearing one, so there you go.  As seen on Whitney Port.