DIY: Lace Up Rectangle Headdress

Some people don’t like rectangle headdresses, but I love them and think they look really nice with hime cut hair. I happened upon a picture of the Love Fortune Gingham Check Headdress that Baby put out last year and loved its unique look with gingham ribbon.

It just so happened I had found red gingham ribbon while out thrifting, and decided I wanted to make something similar with it. I also have two red gingham dresses with cotton eyelet lace, so I had something to wear it with. (I think it is important to have an outfit in mind to match with whatever you plan to make – in my case I have found that if I don’t I almost never end up wearing the thing I made.)

I did not use a pattern, but I took measurements of a rectangle headdress I already had to try to make it about the same size.

There is a solid white cotton base (about 10.5 x 2.5 in rectangle with rounded edges) with interfacing in the middle, then a 3.5 in wide double edged cotton lace for the top, ¾ in wide cotton lace trim sewn onto the wide lace, and red gingham woven ribbon laced up through the holes in the wide cotton lace. I made two bows from the gingham ribbon, sewed them to either end, and decorated the centers with a red rhinestone heart button. The ties are double sided solid white satin ribbon and are sewn sandwiched between the solid white cotton and wide eyelet lace layers.

Most of the materials are thrifted, which posed a bit of a challenge because I did not have enough gingham ribbon for the lacing, bows, and ties. I thought about making bows out of solid red ribbon or white ribbon, but ultimately decided that might be too visually jarring next to the gingham lacing, and made the bows from gingham ribbon. Since you don’t really see the ties when it is worn, I figured putting the solid ribbon there would be a better choice. Ideally I would have used slightly wider ribbon for the ties, but I was trying to use things I already had.