Sore Thumbs

A long time ago I made myself a cotton headband to hold my hair back while I washed my face at night and I used some iron-on velcro pieces for the closure. I was initially a little worried that the iron-on adhesive wouldn't stick to the yarn, but I was actually pretty pleased with the results. However, as the years have passed, most of the velcro has pulled off or become really loose. It started the first time I washed it and sort of went downhill from there. For probably six months it has been holding on by one little piece of velcro until this morning when I finally decided that enough was enough and I was going to sew the velcro into place.

My thumbs are throbbing from (a) pulling the needle through the thick backing of the velcro and (b) handling the pokey side of the velcro. Even using a thimble and a gribber thing for the needle didn't offer much relief (though they did a good job at slowing me down).

Let me tell you: this took a hell of a lot longer than I ever anticipated!! I was only going to sew down the pieces that had fallen off, but then it became clear that the stronger hold on those pieces was going to pull off the weaker holding pieces on the other side in no time.

So, here is a picture of my handiwork. I used the obnoxious green thread because it was the only heavy duty tapestry thread I has in my kit.
You can see here on the flip side that I did a pretty good job of hiding the stitches, but by about the third hour I started getting much more careless.
Despite my complaining, I'm glad I finally took the time to do this. This is probably the most practical thing I have ever knit - I use it twice a day - so it deserved a little extra care to make it sturdy and happy.

p.s. In the interest of preserving trademarks, let me assure you that this was Velcro brand hook and loop tape. There, now this post counts as studying for my intellectual property class. Sweet!

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