diy: hair bows

From the cloth I bought recently at Daiso, and with the major diy mood I was in, I decided to make a bunch of hair bows to wear when school reopens. My tutorial has been inspired and sourced through many inspirations on pinterest. 

1. Start off with a rectangular or square piece of fabric. Squares will result in bows like the blue floral one above while rectangles will be like this bow in the tutorial. Mine measured about 24cm by 12cm. For my blue floral one, i used a 15cm by 15 cm square. 
2. Fold your fabric in half, with the insides facing out and straight stitch as highlighted. Leave a gap at the edge because you will be inverting the fabric after you're done sewing. This gap should also be of reasonable size, not to small or you will have trouble inverting the cloth. 
3. Once you are done, invert the fabric and  straighten it out. You can sew up the gap at this point if it bothers you. 
4. Using a pin or a needle, make some pleats with the fabric and pin through to get the bow shape. Once you are happy, sew through it and around it a few times to secure it in place. 
5. Cut out a smaller piece of fabric. This will be used for the center of the bow. I used an approximation here so you can use whatever length and width you deem  fine. Just remember that you will be sewing it in half again. If you want to skip step 6 then cut a width as desired. 
6. Fold the smaller fabric in half and sew a running stitch as highlighted. Invert it when done. This may be tricky because you will be inverting through a small hole. Be careful and ise a pencil to help poke the fabric through. Alternatively, you can just skip this step and proceed to the next. 
7. Wrap the smaller fabric around the center of the bow and sew it into place. You can cut off any excess length at this point as long as you sew the fabric securely to the bow so that nothing unravels. Also, if you intend to attach a rubber band to your bow, make sure to do it in this step as well - wrap the fabric strip around the bow and rubber band and sew. 
8. And you are done! If you are using a hair clup or pin, you can choose to either sew or glue them onto the back of the bow or both for extra security. I used beacon's glue but a glue gun will also do the trick. 

Anyone can do this diy as it only involves straight stitches which is the easiest stitch to make! Definitely a project to try. And a great way to recycle or preserve your favourite fabrics. Play around with the size and number of pleats. The center fabric can also be replaced with ribbons or embellishments! Let your creative juices flow!

xoxo