Saturday, October 18, 2008

The Perfect Hairband!

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Ok, so it's Saturday. What have I accomplished in the past couple of days that has kept me from updating my blog!?!

I'll have to start back around 20+ years ago with wanting the perfect hairband. I have long hair, very long hair. I sit on it long hair. It hangs in my face if I don't tie it up long hair. I love my long hair but let's face it, there are times when it can be a royal pain in the patootie like when you're at work, the phone rings, you pick it up and try to put it to your ear, but your hair got caught in your earring and you end up with a phone covered in hair, earring wrapped in said hair and you can't hear the caller and you can't get the phone out of the tangle of hair... get the picture?

So over the years I have tried a variety of hair bands and each one had it's failings.
  • I tried the cloth hairband, it kept sliding back, not good.
  • I tried the plastic hairband that sits tightly behind your ears, slowly gouging a red welt into the space and heaven forbid if you wear glasses. Cause then the plastic hairband competes for the space with your eyeglasses that are supposed to rest behind your ears! Glasses 1, hairband 1, me big headache.
  • I tried the metal hairbands which turned out to be a total disaster since long hair tends to tangle into the metal tines and removing said hairband is tantamount to the Spanish Inquisition's torture chamber.
  • I tried macrame hairbands, they would start off tight in the morning, and end up sliding either forward or backward. Such fun.
  • I tried a beaded leather hairband. After losing a handful of hair to the beads and developing a rash from sweating under the leather, let's just say I won't go there anymore
All this to finally lead up to a pattern I found, while cruising the web for knitting ideas, that offered an answer to my long quest for the perfect hairband. It looks simple enough; I-cord with a small buildup of stitches leading into a nice basketweave pattern then back down again to an I-cord. The pattern called for the basketweave area to be 12" long, after measuring my head where I want the hairband to sit, I decided I would make mine a bit longer but still keep the I-cord ties at 12" each end.

I found a tiny bit of leftover yarn in a variegated color that I really like and set to knitting this hairband. For some obscure reason, I could not keep track of the repeats for the basketweave even after repeated attempts, it still kept coming out wonky. Sorry Carissa, not your fault, just my brain not grasping basketweave at 2 am LOL I finally gave up on following the basketweave pattern and just kept knitting/purling my way through until I had the desired length. I figured to myself since this was totally experimental and that it would likely fail, why kill myself over the basketweave not being a real basketweave.

I did the last I-cord stitch this morning, gave it a good stretch to make sure everything was solid and tied it on exactly the way I wanted it and hoped. Four hours went by, nothing had moved. So far so good. My husband and I head over to the local Vietnamese market to pick up some much needed groceries. Instead of my usual tying up of hair, I left the hairband on figuring this would be the litmus test since it was windy. So out we went dragging our bundle buggy behind me to the bus stop. Full wind blowing in my face and it's still not moving! I have a flicker of hope that this may be THE hairband after all. We get on the bus, rode downtown, commenting on the gorgeous fall colors and the blazing sun. Great day in October to be out and about.

Once downtown we walk 4 blocks to the Vietnamese market, hairband still hasn't budged. Cell phone rings, I without thinking twice about it quickly raise the phone to my ear to answer and nothing happens! No tangled hair in the earring or cell phone caught in hair caught in earring! Amazing!


We came home, unloaded the buggy and we made supper, hairband still in place. It's now just before midnight and this awesome hairband still hasn't budged from where I set it this morning! That's 12 hours, no tangled disaster, no hair in the face. I am so thankful that I plan on knitting one of these for each of my nieces, sister, sisters in law, daughter and several more for myself.

Now, I cannot take the credit for this wonderful discovery. I found this hairband at Carissa Knits blog If you look down the right hand column, you will see she has a list of free patterns and the Basketweave headband is the 3rd item down. She is a member of the Ravelry community as well, so go check out her blog.


Thank you Carissa for the wonderful hairband! You have ended my 20+ year search for the perfect hairband.

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