H is for Hair bow

     This year, at her request, we signed my girly-girl up for t-ball. When we went shopping, I knew that she would want all of her equipment to be pink. I was correct. We now own a pink bat, pink batting helmet, pink and black cleats and a pink and black baseball bag. She would have a pink glove, but they didn't have any right-handed pink gloves when we went shopping.

     The last thing I knew that she would want (well, she thinks she needs) - a baseball hair bow. I drew the line and told her that the hair bow needed to be her team colors (red and white). Surprisingly, she was ok with this idea. Well, I did mention that pink and red don't match...lol

     So, after we had all of the essential equipment, we headed over to look at hairbows. To our dismay, they didn't have any red baseball bows. They had many other colors, and they had red with soccer balls, but not what we needed. I started looking at how they were made and thought, "Hey, I can do that."

     I have a large supply of ribbon in my craft bins. However, I do not have any with baseballs. So, we headed to Wal-Mart to see what they had. They usually carry 2 types of baseball ribbon, but were out of both. Sigh. We weren't anywhere near a craft store, so we headed home and decided to look for baseball ribbon the next time we were out of town. Well, I did that, and came up with the same result. I then turned to ebay. Within 2 minutes, I found 5 yards of 3/8" baseball ribbon for $3.75. Not a bad price...and it's cheaper than the gas that it would take to drive the 2 hour round trip to the craft store.

     My ribbon arrived today and I started thinking about how I was going to make this bow. Instead of just making a hairbow, I decided to make a Pony O. Pony Os are popular with cheerleaders and are, sometimes, very colorful. Because this Pony O has a specific purpose, I used only black, red and white ribbon.
   

     This Pony O is made of ribbon that was 8" long. I have made them before, and made them much longer (up to 15" even). Keep in mind that the pieces hanging down are going to be a little less than half of the total length of the ribbon. So, the hanging pieces on this one are a little less than 4". Thing 1 has long hair, but I know that she may wear it at the bottom of her braid as well, and I didn't want it dragging the ground.

     I used three pieces of 1" wide black polka dot, three pieces of 1" wide red grosgrain, three pieces of 1/2" wide red with white border and nine pieces of the 3/8" wide baseball ribbon. I used a lot of the baseball ribbon because I didn't want all of the bigger ribbon to overtake it. It is after all, a Pony O for baseball.

     After I cut all of the pieces, you stack them like an asterisk. I started with the polkadot ribbon on the bottom, then baseballs, fat red, baseballs, skinny red and ended with more baseballs.

Stack your ribbon like this.

     When it was stacked how I wanted, I carefully moved it to my sewing machine and sewed a line right down the middle.

Sew where the dotted line is.

     If you don't want to sew (or aren't able to for whatever reason), you can skip that step. Sewing it just helps the ribbon stay in place and, in my opinion, helps the Pony O last longer.

     Next, scrunch up the center of the Pony O (where you just sewed), to look how you want it. Hold it like that for a minute so that it "remembers" how it's supposed to fold. Then, using a thin piece of string, tie the Pony O in place. Make sure that you tie the knot on the back of the bow for cosmetic purposes.

     Using a hot glue gun, connect your ponytail holder to the back of the Pony O.

     To finish your Pony O, choose one type of ribbon that you used in your Pony O and cut another small piece. I selected the red with white border and cut about 5". Tie a knot in the middle. Put a dab of hot glue on the back of the knot and stick it right in the center of your Pony O. Then, fold the edges around and glue them to the back of the Pony O. This is going to cover up (what I call) the "mess" that you made when you scrunched the Pony O.

     The most important thing, Thing 1 loves it. She already asked if she could wear it everyday. I told her no, but I think I need to make her more in colors that will match the majority of her wardrobe.

Edit - since a lot of people have asked me about this, I got the ribbon from Twice As Nice Ribbons and More. My ribbon was shipped quickly and was exactly as she had described it. I would buy from her again and I would recommend her, if you're looking for ribbon.