How to sew hair scrunchies, DIY tutorial

May 27, 2020

Looking for a use for my fabric offcuts and a new COVID-19 lockdown activity, I decided to make some scrunchies. After I shared them on my Instagram Stories, I received A LOT of requests to publish a blog post showing you how to make them. So after making a few tweaks with the help of my dear friend Amy-Olivia (we graduated together with our fashion degrees), I’m bringing you a blog post with the easiest and best way to make your own hair scrunchies from scratch.

To make your scrunchie you can use new fabric, offcuts left over from a pervious project or even a garment that you want to up-cycle and if you don’t have enough, you can always sew together a few scraps to make a patchwork scrunchie! The possibilities are endless, the last scrunchies I made were denim ones out of a leg of one of Michael’s old jeans that couldn’t be donated. How’s that for giving garments a second life? Sustainability really is rewarding!

In this blog post I’m using some more fabric I bought the last time I was in Hawaii. To see the last thing I made with fabric from Hawaii or what else you can sew for your travels, take a look at How to make a drawstring laundry bag.

Scrunchies are great for keeping long hair back as you adventure abroad, plus they’re cute accessories when worn on your wrist. They’re also a great gift for birthdays and Christmas!

Ok let’s get creating!

What you need

Fabric measuring 55cm long and 12cm wide (21.5” long x 5” wide)

Elastic measuring 14cm long (5 1/2” long)

Sewing machine

Fabric shears/scissors

Snips (you can use your fabric scissors if you don’t have snips)

Pins

X2 Safety pins

Cotton thread

Ruler/tape measure/pattern master

What to do

1. Measure out and cut your fabric.

2. Fold the fabric in half, lengthways with the right side facing in and pin it.

3. Sew where you’ve pinned starting about 5cm/2” from the top and ending about 5cm/2” from the bottom. Use the edge of the foot as your seam allowance guide and make sure you backstitch where you start and end your stitching to stop it from unravelling. Snip your thread.

4. Turn your piece inside out so it’s the right way around.

5. Take the two ends and pin them together, right sides facing in.

6. Sew along where you’ve pinned, from top to bottom, backstitching at both ends to secure the stitching. Again, use the edge of the foot to guide your seam allowance. Snip your thread.

7. Push the new seam in so you have a circular tube with a little opening at the top.

8. Measure out and cut your elastic.

9. Take your safety pins and pin one to one end of the elastic, then use the other to pin the other end of the elastic to your scrunchie fabric. This is to hold the elastic in place whilst you thread it through the scrunchie.

10. Take the loose end of you elastic (that you didn’t pin to the fabric) and thread it through the scrunchie. Use the safety pin to push the elastic through, gathering the fabric as you go. Keep going until the safety pin is back where you started.

11. Keeping hold of both ends, unpin the safety pin from the scrunchie and hold the ends of the elastic together removing the pins.

12. Being careful not to let go, place the ends of the elastic under the sewing machine foot, one on top of the other, and sew back and forth a few times to stitch the ends together and secure the stitching. Snip your thread.

13. Take hold of your scrunchie where it’s open and fold in the raw edges closing them together until it matches the existing seam.

14. Pin it closed and top stitch along where you’ve pinned to close the hole. Keep the stitching close to the edge of the scrunchie and make sure you don’t sew the elastic. Back stitch both ends and snip away your thread.

15. The last step before you can wear your scrunchie is to twist the fabric around the elastic so that the seam, and where you’ve just stitched the hole closed, is now on the inside of the scrunchie, this way you can hide the stitching when it’s worn.