Simple Sewn Felt Leaf and Bud Hair Garland – a Light Comfortable Headband Tiara to Release Your Inner Flower Child

My daughter is a flower child at heart and loves to wear headbands, but hates when they get to heavy during the day. She wanted a light, durable, simple leaf garland that she could wear for many hours at a time. I wanted something quick and easy to make for her.

This garland is the result! It’s a simple wire and duck tape frame covered by felt strips that are blanket stitched in place, and then adorned with leaves and flower buds formed from simple pre-made felt circles. The final touch is a handful of large beads to add shine. This project was whipped up in an afternoon and used simple materials most of which came from a bargain store. And as for stitching skills, you only need to know how to do blanket stitch to complete the project.

Because it is a felt sewn tiara it will be occasionally hand washable and rather durable, and the design is easy to adapt to lots of situations.

I sourced most of the materials from my local bargain store and the rest were basic sewing supplies I had on hand:

• 4 * 36cm lengths of 18 gauge florist wire
• 1 bag craft felt shapes circles 2cm diameter in mixed colours to use the green ones for leaves
• 1 bag craft felt shapes circles 1.5cm diameter in mixed colours to use the pink ones for flower buds
• Rotary cutter
• Metal ruler or quilting ruler
• A4 sheet of mint green felt, or strip 23cm * about 5cm wide
• length of stretch clear jewelry elastic 0.5mm (optional)
• Handful of light pink and white beads with a big enough hole to thread a needle through (not seed beads) (optional)
• Large eye sewing needle
• Embroidery or crewel needle
• Embroidery threads to sew the felt. I used DMC 14 (pale apple green), 894 (very light carnation), and 3850 (dark bright green). Pick colours to match your felt colour choices
• Embroidery scissors
• Scissors to cut tape
• Duct tape
• Tape measure
• Pins (optional)

Use the tape measure to measure the size of your crown. The one I have made measured 59cm and was easily formed from overlapping two lengths of florist wire.

Take 2 lengths of florist wire and overlap them about 5cm. Use a tiny 1cm wide piece of duck tape to wrap the wires tightly at this join. Bend the wires gently around to form a circle to your required size. You may want to draw a circle to the size to follow the shape or use a plate edge. Once your size is reached, overlap the wires again and use a small piece of duct tape to secure.

Now overlap the 2nd set of two wire 5cm and tape. Place these wire against your original ring but have the join offset from the joins on the original ring. Use small strips of tape to tape the new wires to the old on one side. Gently, curve the new wires around and as you go catch them down with tiny bits of duct tape. The idea is to secure the 2 rings of wire together but not to add to much bulk from the tape so be miserly with your tape use. A fine layer of tape is the best outcome. Be sure to cover all the wire ring with tape.

Using your rotery cutter and a ruler, cut even strips of felt from the A4 sheet of mint green felt. My strips measured 12mm wide by 23cm long. I found these measurements by using the tape measure to measure the circumference of the wire ring covered with tape. My 12mm was a tight wrap of the wire. You may want to make yours 14mm. Why 23 cm lengths? I wanted to space the joins in the felt pieces out around the crown and so I worked out 59cm divided into 3 sections and then added 2cm to each length for overlapping. This is not a precise science. Just so long as there are not a whole bunch of join lumps on one section of the headband but rather dispersed a little is best. I was aiming to cover each of the joins with leaves anyway but spacing is still worthwhile. I have marked where the joins fell using pins in the finished photo.

To attach the felt strip to your ring, pinch the felt strip lengthwise at one end around the crown. Using matching 2 strands of embroidery thread, blanket stitch the felt to the hoop. I tried to keep the join in the blanket stitch on the inside edge of the ring.

Once you reach the end of the strip you are currently working with you will need to join the next section to the first. The way I did this was to curve the end of the felt strip (see photo) and lay this overlapping the first attached strip about 1cm. Whip stitch the start of the overlap and then continue blanket stitching the new length of felt.

For the final piece of felt, as I approached the end of the ring, I repeated the curved edge process. In this way the crown is fairly smooth at the end and the joins are dispersed.

The tiny flower buds are formed from 2 1.5 cm circles of pink felt.

The first circle is rolled a little like a cigar. Catch this down with a couple of stitches in pink embroidery thread (I used 2 strands). Then the next circle is wrapped around the first but just a little lower down than the first. The two circles are caught down with a couple of stitches in pink embroidery thread to secure.

Take a 2cm circle of green felt and place the bud against the diametre of the circle with the top of the bud peaking over one edge. Tack the bud to the leaf with a couple of stitches of matching green embroidery thread.

I made around nine flower buds to disperse around the ring. Play with the number and colour to suit your style.

Each of the leaves is just a 2cm felt circle pinched onto one side of the tiara and then caught down with a few stitches in matching green thread on the base of one edge. Then repeat with a second circle from the other side of the tiara slightly down from the first. Bay catching the leaves down on one edge they will naturally sit slightly out from the crown.

The flower buds are the same process except the second leaf circle you attach has the bud underneath it!

The only rules I followed were to place a set of leaves over each of the joins as the first step, and to keep working leaf sets so that the same edge is caught down all the way around the ring. Drawing arrows on a paper below your headband ring may help you remember the direction. I randomly spaced out the leaf set with flower bud sets and with the different shades of green felt circles.

I guess my leaves are about 2cm apart from each other on the ring, but this is not precise. The idea is that the ring looks like a plant stem so there is natural variations. I was also not super particular with patterns of colours.

I had more than enough green circles in the mixed packet to make this whole project and with lots of circles left over to make another.

The crown looks nice with just the leaves and buds but I wanted a little more shine. I added some pink and white beads sewn down with stretch clear elastic threaded through a large needle. Just make sure the needle is big enough to take the clear elastic, and the beads have a large enough hole to take the needle! I grouped sets of 3 to 5 beads at each base of each flower bud set of leaves.

You are finished! Enjoy your new headband.

A couple of ideas I had for alternatives were an Autumn leaf colour mix on an orange ring, and anything goes colour mix and match on a pale blue ring, and a white ring with black leaves and red buds for a bold look. Please share any versions you create. I’d love to see the results.