Bits for bridesmaids

One of my cousins is getting married in a few weeks, and during the summer asked me to see what I could do with headbands for the bridesmaids. There are six of them and they're all little, so any hair decoration needs to be unbreakable (no delicate feathers here!). She gave me seven ribbon-wrapped alice bands, covered with horrible little pink flowers. One to play with, six for the kids. First things first, let's get rid of those pink suckers - yuck! Luckily they weren't stuck on too firmly, so a good tug got rid of them cleanly. Then I played around with ways of adding decoration to the band, stitching peyote tubes of seed pearls to slide over the band completely and then trying some free-form embroidery with ivory silk and seed pearls. It just wasn't coming together, until I came up with the idea of going back to basics and simply couching rows and rows of seed pearls along the whole length of the band. The finished effect was lovely, if I do say so myself, but a little on the bare side.

Hmm...

Time spent pondering was interrupted by the arrival of my sister with her girls, aged two and four. They're both going to be bridesmaids at the wedding, and who knows what little girls want better than other little girls? Their verdict, pronounced after much giggly debate and trying on of the sample band: princesses and weddings need to have sparkle. Not being a very girly girl, I had forgotten the crucial ingredient - crystals! They might not be quite my scene (unless they're the delicious paparadscha colour), but I overstitched a line of 2mm clear AB Swarovski bicones (courtesy of the Bead Shop in Nottingham) right down the middle of the band. Charlotte, the bride, was delighted when she saw the finished sample, so now I'm deep into band number four, with another six weeks to go until the wedding. Once I've finished them I'll post a picture and the pattern here.

My only remaining problem? Forcing myself away from the torch to work on getting these finished!