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Love Is Sweet: Fat Quarter Inspiration

I’ve been following Lucy from https://smileandmake.com/ over on Instagram for a while and have also been reading her blog for the last few months and I find her to be an incredibly inspiring person. I’ll leave you to read more about her over on her website in her own words but she campaigns to raise money for The Brain Tumour Charity after sadly loosing her husband last year. As well as raising money for the charity through the Michael Barry Fund she also sews the most incredible, colourful, dresses I’ve ever seen… seriously they are gorgeous!

On the 3rd March the charity is hosting the Wear It Out campaign to raise awareness and funds whilst wearing a bandana!

Lucy says on her blog “This is a statistic I often quote, but in the UK less than 2% of cancer research funding is spent on research into brain tumours. For the 10,600 people diagnosed each year, this isn’t good enough. You can help us change this. The Brain Tumour Charity aims to raise £150k throughout Brain Tumour Awareness Month in March, which could fund 600 days of research

You can either Make your own bandana, Buy a new one or Wear one that you already have and make a donation to the charity by either texting TMBF81 £5 to 70070 to donate £5 or you can do so here. Then you can post a selfie on social media using the hashtag #WearItOut on 3rd March.

I think this is such a fantastic cause, and as some of you may already know I do love wearing a bandana Rosie the Riveter style so I’m excited to make a new one – or maybe two – and make my donation. With the theme of this month’s boxes being Love Is Sweet I can’t think of a better time to do something for a good cause, plus how cute would a bandana look made in these pink and white fabrics?

I have found four different styles of bandana or headband that you could make. You might need to sew two strips of fabric together in some cases to make one longer strip, making sure that the seam line will be hidden at the back of your head. I think that Lucy is planning to do a tutorial on her blog as well soon so make sure to keep an eye out for that.

First up is this double sided headband with an elastic section underneath to make it more comfortable. There is also a link that shows you six different ways of styling the headband, all of which are gorgeous.

Next is the Rosie Wrap which is interfaced to give it more structure. There are two different widths given depending on how you like to wear yours.

Simply Sewing Magazine have a tutorial up on their website to make this chic Parisian-inspired head band, sewn with an elastic strip to help keep it in place.

Finally, my favourite way of wearing a bandana is with wire running through it to twist the ends together and give them some structure creating a cute bow like effect. Hobbycraft have an easy to follow tutorial on how to make one on their website.

I’m off to make at least one of each of these now. Would it be too much to make one out of scraps each time I finish a garment to have a matching hair accessory? Yes I think so, but I’m still tempted…

EDIT

Lucy has just posted a fantastic tutorial on Smile and Make for making headbands with and without a wire, reversible and for making one using a fat quarter. So definitely pop over there and have a look!