Tutorial : Knitted Hair Bows

I love textiles.  Ribbons, fabric, yarns - you name it, I can waste two hours coveting it.  The problem is that, except for yarn, I don't really know what the heck to do with the stuff.  I'm just starting to learn to use my sewing machine (more posts on Me vs the Machine to come), and I just couldn't think of anything to do with ribbons.

So I started making hair pretties!  Check out my Etsy shop to see my barrettes and bobby pins.

I never thought of using my knitting chops to make hair doohickeys until my friend posted this pic on Facebook:

 

And lo and behold, I thought "I can do that!" Cue the looming-disaster music.  Actually, taking a close look made me realize that a knitted hairbow is really just a rectangle tied around the middle.  What could be easier?

So I knitted a rectangle out of pretty yarn (Noro Kureyon, for the curious):

 

Pinched it in the middle:

 And wrapped around the middle to anchor it.

Voila! Bow!

But can I be happy with moderate success?  Of course not.  I had decided to cast on at the short end, but the sides of my test bow looked a little sloppy.  So I switched to a slipped stitch edge to make the sides neater.  (This just means I slipped the first stitch of each row purlwise, rather than working it in pattern.) 

Then I thought, why not try casting on the long edge?  I think too much sometimes.  Bad idea.

Sitting back to admire my handiwork on a chunkier bow (Spud & Chloe yarn), I realized that the original picture looks more like the purl side than the knit.  So I flipped the bow around, and I liked that even better! Yay!

 

Then just for kicks I decided to make a tiny bow on sock yarn.  (Atacama alpaca ..love!)  And this way by far my favorite, and will be available for sale as a clippie / ponytail holder on my Etsy shop - as soon as I get around to buying some clippies or elastics.  Keep an eye out for it! 

Have you tried knitting or crocheting hairbows?  Share a link and your advice!