Hair Bow Knitting Pattern

Whenever a rehearsal period ends and it's finally time for our show to open, I like to make little presents for all the girls to celebrate our opening day.  I made friendship bracelets when we opened this same show last summer, and this summer I decided to knit hair bows.

This is a great project if you're working on shrinking your yarn stash like I am, because each bow only uses a small fraction of a skein of yarn.  You can probably make several of these little guys without buying a single thing.  I made 10!

Notice the black loops behind the bows?  Those are hair ties that are built right in for ease of use.

Materials:
Worsted weight yarn (any color, any material, whatever you've got in your stash!)
US Size 3 knitting needles
Hair ties (I used Goody ouchless elastics in black)
Scissors
Tapestry needle

Pattern:
Cast on 10 stitches
Row 1: Knit

Row 2: Purl
Repeat these two rows for 6.5 inches.
Cast off

Finishing:
1.  Weave in the ends.
2.  Place the knitting on a table right-side down (aka purl side up).
3.  Fold the cast on and the cast off edges toward each other so they touch, as shown in the picture on the right.
4.  Seam the two edges together so the fabric becomes a loop.
5.  Wrap a piece of yarn around the middle of the loop so that it looks like a bow; then secure that piece of yarn with a knot.
6.  Now hold a hair band against the back of the bow and wrap another piece of yarn around both the middle of the bow and one side of the hair band.  Secure the yarn with a knot.

You should now have a finished bow attached to a hair band!

Here's a shot of all my lovely cast mates modeling their bows:

I had a great time knitting these bows, and I think they were a big hit with the girls.

I used all different types of yarn to make these, and the bows made of superwash wool were definitely the easiest to knit, but the cotton bows felt the sturdiest as finished products.  Can you tell which bows were made with which type of yarn?

No matter which yarn I was using, I had a great time creating this pattern and knitting these little guys, and I hope you have fun with them too.

Happy knitting!
xoxo
Laura