Hair Clips

Anyone who has a little girl must be able to relate to my problem: hair clips. You start with matching pairs. In a pot. In the bedroom. And within just a few days you end up with no matching pairs and clips scattered throughout the house, in the car, in pockets. In fact, everywhere.

Mia loves her clips and bobbles. I'm not such a fan, so I started hunting on Pinterest (read, wasting time on Pinterest) looking for a tutorial to make some kind of pretty hair clip pouch thing. I found loads, but it was often from the same non-existent source. Or they were for sale rather than providing a tutorial. That was a couple of months ago. I even picked out some pretty fabrics.

Yesterday I got a sudden urge to get my arse in gear and actually make it. And after all of the procrastination it took just a couple of hours.

Briefly, this is what I did: Fabric and cutting:

• Exterior fabric: 6" x 16.5"
• Interior fabric: 6" x 16.5"
• Wadding: approx 7" x 18"
• Pocket interior: cut a rectangle 9.5" x 5.5". Lay with the longest edge closest to you and mark 1.75" in from each end. Cut an angle from this mark to the top corner to give a trapezoid shape. These triangle shaped ends will form the sides of the pocket.
• Pocket exterior: cut as interior above
• Light-weight iron on interfacing: cut as pocket exterior above.
• Ribbon: two lengths 17" - I used a 1/2" width ribbon and would suggest not going narrower.
• Hairband (grown up one, not child one)
• Matching button.
• Matching thread

And here's how - I hope this is clear... I used 1/4" seam allowance throughout.

1. Fuse interfacing to exterior pocket piece.
2. Place exterior pocket and interior pocket pieces right sides together (RST) and sew along the longest edge only. Turn right side out, press the seam back on itself and then top stitch the seam you've just sewn. Lengthen the stitch length and tack the remaining sides together to prevent movement in the next steps.
3. Fold both the short edges over so that the top seams are lined up and the interior fabric is on the inside. Press in place. Put the pocket piece to one side.
4. Take the interior fabric and lay it on the wadding. Lay the ribbon lengthways along the fabric, evenly spaced and tack or pin in place. Quilt through all the layers across the width, catching the ribbon each time. I quilted about 2.5" apart. Trim the wadding back to the size of the fabric.
5. You now need to tack the pocket in place on the bottom of the interior piece. Lengthen the stitch length and position the pocket. I used wonderclips to hold it in place. Line up the raw edges of the pocket with the rraw edges of the interior fabric. Tack within the seam allowance.
6. Using wonderclips again, flatten the pocket so that the gape is away from the edges. Place the interior and exterior fabrics right sides together, and pin/clip together. 
7. Position the hairband so that half of it is between the interior and exterior fabrics and the other half hangs out beyond the fabrics. Pin or tack in place centrally on the top edge - this hair band has a tendency to move...
8. Stitch around the edge using a 1/4" seam allowance, leaving a gap for turning. Do not leave the gap anywhere near the pocket. Ask me how I know.... reverse stitch at the beginning and end.
9. Trim the corners, and the hairband excess and turn through, poking out the corners.
10. Top stitch all the way around, closing the gap as you go.
11. Press flat. Make sure that the ribbon will stand up to the iron before you go for it. Again - ask me how I know!
12. Fold the fabric round the pocket (as shown below) and work out where to attach the button, so that the hairband can loop round it and hold it shut. Attach the button. If I were doing this again I would have a smaller hoop of hair band so the button doesn't sit quite so low to the bottom of the pouch. I'd also try and get the hairband more central...

Ta-dah! I have hung Mia's next to her changing table using a command hook. The pocket at the bottom is great for bobbles as well as her hairbrush.

If you have a go using this bare-bones tutorial and get stuck, just let me know and I'll try and help out.