DIY: Lululemon headband

I have always been jealous of those people that can wear any headband and it magically stays on their head.  This has never been the case for me.  Remember in high school, when it was cool to use pre-wrap as a headband? (Maybe it still is??)  Yeah, it would fall off my head in about 0.785 seconds. So I had to be the awkward one on the basketball team that didn't get to wear one of the cool pre-wrap headbands. (I'm sure there were many other reasons that led to my awkwardness.)

A few years ago, I discovered the headbands at Lululemon and I have been hooked ever since.  These are the only headbands that will stay on my head.  I absolutely think that they are worth every penny.  They stay put, last forever, last through washes, and look adorable.

I have a couple solid colored ones I wear for my runs.  I never want to wear the patterned ones because I would hate to sweat through them.  I have been wanting to try to make them for a while, but could never figure out what fabric to use.

I happened to stumble across the activewear fabric at JoAnn's one day.  I think that you can make anything as long as you have the right fabric. The reason that Lululemon's stuff is so great (and expensive) is because they use the best fabric possible.  That makes all the difference.


And here is the tutorial.

Supplies:
-fabric for the headband (I used a polyester/spandex blend.  This seemed to work the best.  I also tried a cotton/polyester blend, but it seemed to stretch out really easy.)
-Coordinating thread
-Hot glue gun
-Iron

1.  Cut a 19" x 5" rectangle out of your fabric.

2. Fold and pin your fabric together lengthwise (right sides of the fabric together).

3. Sew along the long edge of the fabric.  Start and end about an inch from the edges of the fabric.

4. Press the seam open.

5.The side that is shown in the picture above is the wrong side (the side you want on the the inside of the headband.  You want to slip one end of the tube inside of itself so both ends are together with the right sides together.  It works best to take your fingers through the tube, grab the end, and pull it through.

6. Now sew the width side together with the right side together.  Again, don't sew all the way to the ends.  You'll need this gap to turn it right-side-out.

7.  Nice work! That's my least favorite part.  Now you want to find the gap that you left open and turn the headband right-side-out.

And it should look something like this.

8. Now the only sewing left is the finishing stitch.  I folded my headband so the seam I sewed was in the middle of the headband.  You will be sewing over this anyway.  When you get this in place, iron.  I usually put a couple pins down so I don't loose my shape.  

Take the loose edges of the fabric and fold them under so they match up with the rest of the seams.  Pin this down like crazy.

9. Now you are going to sew over the seams.  This is how you will finish those loose ends.  The seam gives you a perfect guideline to sew along so both sides will look perfectly straight.  I picked out a wide stitch from my machine to use.  If you have a sewing machine with lots of stitches to choose from, experiment with them to see which one you like.  If you have a standard machine, just use the zigzaq stitch.  You can change the size and widths of the zig zag.

I sewed the width seam first.  I thought this helped to stabilize it.

10.  One last step! The grippers!  I have no idea what Lululemon uses on their headbands, but I found that using hot glue works just as well.  I practiced using the glue gun on a scrap piece of fabric.  I tried a couple different patterns (dots, line, zig zags, etc.). Personally, I thought the dots or the zigzags worked the best.  It gives the headband room to stretch.  Keep the glue to a minimum.  Less is more.  Big globs of the glue will just give it a better opportunity to fall off.

Lay out one side of your headband and carefully apply your preferred grippy pattern.  Make sure you let it completely dry before flipping over to the other side.

Let dry and flip the grippy side in.
And you are DONE!

I went running in it after I made it and it stayed put the whole time!

If you don't have a sewing machine or aren't the crafty type, I'm selling them in my etsy shop  Hopefully I will get more colors soon.

If you try to make one (or many) I would love to see pictures or hear any suggestions you have.

Happy crafting!