DIY Hair Bow

What You Need:

• Needle
• Thread
• Old dress shirt
• Scissors
• Iron
• Ironing board
• Barrett, hair clip or bobby pin

What You Do:

1. Help your child use scissors to cut a 5 x 6 inch rectangle out of the shirt fabric.
2. Have her fold the rectangle so that the two longer sides are joined together. Now she should have a rectangle that measures 2 ½ x 6 inches.
3. Show her how to use an iron and an ironing board to press this fabric fold.
4. Help her use a needle and thread to sew a seam around the rectangle, stopping when she has only a one inch opening left. 
5. Have her knot and trim the thread. 
6. Let her turn the rectangle right-side-out.
7. Help her re-knot the thread and sew the rectangle closed. 
8. Have her knot off and trim the thread again.
9. Now it is time to make a basic bow shape from the rectangle.  Help your child knot the thread and sew a line of running stitches from the top to the bottom of the rectangle.  The stitches should run along the center line of the rectangle and be fairly long.
10. Do not knot off the thread!  Instead, have her pull the needle and thread, gathering the fabric so that it no longer lies flat.  The center of the rectangle should now be narrower and shaped like a bow.
11. Now she can knot off and trim the thread.
12. Have her use scissors to cut a 2 ½ x 1 inch rectangle out of the same fabric.
13. Help her fold this small rectangle in half, matching the longer sides again. 
14. Let her use her needle and thread to seam the edges. 
15. Show her how to take this narrow tube and finger crease it into a band with the seam in the center of one side. 
16. Have her lay this band across the center of her bow so that the seamed edge of the band doesn’t show. 
17. Help her wrap the band around the bow. 
18. Let her sew the band into a loop, stitching it onto the rectangle at the same time so that it cannot slide off. 
19. Have her stitch or glue the entire bow to a barrette, clip or hair pin.