Oh My Head!

I'm working on a tutorial for a 6 color woven ribbon headband and managed to stumble through my first one. It's loose and the weave has errors where I goofed, but overall it's passable.

I'm a little picky about my headbands as most are too tight and bug the heck out of me. So I was really bummed to discover that these were "those" headbands. Darn! Well, not much I can do about the one already made but at least I can fix the others I bought. I tried a trick knitters use to uncoil their circular needles and darn if it didn't work:)

So if you’ve ever wished those darned headbands didn’t give you a headache, here’s a quick solution.

The headband on the left is how it came from the store. I reshaped it to the one on the right.

Boil water on the stove (not microwave) in a pot big enough to give your headband plenty of room. You need a full, rolling boil.

Grab the headband with some tongs and dip one side into the boiling water. Keep it moving and don’t allow it to touch the bottom of the pan. I use a kind of rocking motion, submersing the headband from tip to center point, kind of rolling back and forth.

Keep a good eye on the tips, in about 20-27 seconds you’ll see the curve relax. Don’t look away while you’re doing this or you’ll miss it. Repeat the process for the other side.

And I couldn't resist trying it on my completed one too. I did take the precaution of putting binder clips on the ends just in case the glue loosened. I'm pretty sure boiling water will make the hot glue gun stuff fail, but I use E6000 and it seems to be staying. I'll leave the clips on until it dries.

Just 'cause I don't want anyone to ruin a hairband they love - consider if whatever your hairband is decorated with can withstand being plunged into boiling water for a couple of minutes before you try this on a completed one. The finished one I did was made with only grosgrain ribbon, and in my case it wasn't something I was going to be able to wear unless I could get it to relax. In other words, I wasn't losing anything by trying.