How to Make a Belly Dancing Headband

Belly dancers have colorful costumes adorned with jewels, beads, and coins. Belly dance costumes are often complete with a headband consisting of a beaded design or Egyptian coins. The headband is used to help accentuate the face, and eyes. While performing a belly dancer will isolate certain body parts such as the hips, chest, arms, face, and eyes, and the headband helps give an exotic and exciting persona while performing. By assembling some easy to find materials you can make yourself a belly dancer's headband.

Things You'll Need

• 1 piece of fabric 18 inches in length
• 1 piece of fabric 12 inches in length
• Sewing needle and thread
• Beads, coins, or embroidery floss
• ½ yard of sequin or ribbon
• 6 inch Piece of ½ inch width elastic
• Sewing machine

Instructions

1. Start out by trimming the fabric pieces of access fraying. If you have a sewing machine you can also apply an overcast stitch over the hemline of each fabric piece. This will eliminate any future fraying. The 18 inch piece of fabric will become the frontal portion of the headband, and the 12 inch piece will become the elastic portion.

2. Apply the desired design onto the front side of the 18 inch fabric. Add sequins or ribbon trim around the hemline of the front portion of the headband. If you want to do machine embroidery on the headband you can pin the headband piece onto another piece of fabric, place into the embroidery hoop, and begin machine embroidery. Once the design is completed you can either take a seam ripper and remove the headband piece or cut the headband away from the other fabric.

3. Set aside the front portion of the headband, and begin working on the back portion. If you want to add sequin trim or ribbon to the back portion you can do so now. Fold the back portion length wise so the fabric is inside out to make a tube. Hand sew the length of the tube, and insert the elastic.

4. Set up the sewing machine, and sew the back portion of the head band. To do this you need to sew the elastic into the fabric. You need to pull the elastic while sewing; this will make the back portion stretchy. You should then hand sew both ends of the tube shut.

5. Attach one end of the back portion to one end of the front portion of the headband. Try on for size by manually holding the other side to ensure a proper fit. If the headband seems to fit attach the other end, and the headband is ready to wear.