My magnificent obsession

Irish Jig's hair is a dichotomy of adorable and maintenance. The curls, when in Shirley Temple mode, are quite fetching and garner many a compliment from the general public. The reality of getting her mop of unruly curls into that mode is borderline hurtful to all involved. There's saturating, moisturizing, gentle (I try!) combing, and little fuzzy knots that don't play along.

As a result, I tend to only force the hair maintenance routine for special occasions (i.e. NOT  for hanging out with Mama all day). She detests barrettes and pony elastics because they pull her hair. But a head band? She's all for the head band. To that end, my lastest obsession is making headbands.

Pattern taken from free posting on a site I can't find anymore

My first incarnation was a simple double crochet band with chain ties at each end, as shown above. While it works, the tying process causes more knots in the fine hair at the back of her head and I found that the tie didn't stay tight enough over the course of the day. I was contemplating various revisions when I used this headband on Jazz's hair last week:

Batik headband from Ten Thousand Villages

The proverbial light bulb illuminated in my mind and I got to work. A strip of patterned crochet with simple elastic bands attaching the ends = a fabulous head band that stays tight and fit all day. I can adjust the length of elastic to accommodate the stretch intrinsic to the type of yarn.

V-Stitch pattern from MyMerryMessyLife, Shell pattern my own creation

Making these becomes a little obsessive

Of course, a plain headband is somewhat boring. I found a little bling in the remains of the baby barrettes, the button box, and my yarn scraps stash.

Flower and leaves pattern from Attic24

Someone likes to flaunt all her bling at once.  She's also not all that concerned with color coordination, as evidenced by the pink/ red/ purple/ orange ensemble shown below.

Today's post title from Stephen Curtis Chapman's "Magnificent Obsession"