Summer knits and hairbands for American Girl Dolls!

   

                                                     Summer Sleeveless Set.

Ella-Mae.

     This week I have been very busy with my latest knitting patterns for 18 inch dolls. I published "AGD Summer Sleeveless Set" and finished off the testing on another "Ella-Mae" which will be available on Ravelry later today.
     I am so lucky to have some super-quick efficient testers who control my patterns!

My latest pattern "Ella-Mae" has a matching hairband as part of the outfit. I have great difficulty buying the hairband blanks for American Girl dolls here so had to adapt cheap plastic ones.
     This was an idea I had seen on another blog so just had to have a go!

 If you would like to check it out this was the original blog post:  http://tikidoll.blogspot.it/2011/09/how-to-make-headband-...

These were some cheap plastic hairbands I found for a few cents.

 First I bent the hairband and held it in place with some wire leaving a small amount to hold it.

 Then using the extra wire as a handle I dipped it into some boiling water for a couple of minutes. Here the time depends on the plastic. The orange one took far less. Careful not to let it touch the pan, just the water!

I then put it into cold water to set the shape.  With some cutters I chopped off the extra length.
 I quickly redipped the ends in the boiling water to smooth any rough edges.

Look how cute! 

     
                                                           Here is the orange one.

I sewed the knitted pieces from the pattern onto the hairband and added the bow!

                       
                                                    So easy to make and so cute!

I would love to hear if you try this!