Techno Headband

A mildy esoteric project, that isn’t really about sewing as such, but did involve a bit.

I read an article about bone conduction and advertising via train windows (stay with me here) which led me to buying one of these:

http://www.maxvirtual.com/index.html

A bluetooth, headphone free, sound conducting hat!  Sounds great huh?  Perfect for jogging or commuting I thought.

Unfortunately, when it arrived, it turned out to be total rubbish, for a few reasons…

1) When playing it is easily hearable by other people, in fact it is actually louder for other people than a pair of ipod earphones.

2) The sound quality is awful. Very tinny unless you force the pressure pads onto your temples with your hands. Not entirely comfortable that…

3) At top volume the sound massively distorts.

4) At anything other than top volume it is basically inaudible, and even then it is only useable in a quiet room I suspect. It certainly won’t be audible on a train.

5) The build quality is poor to say the least.

In conclusion, not good at all.  Then I had a brainwave!  If it was in a headband rather than a hat, then it would be much tighter on the head so the sound will conduct better, and the material of the headband will muffle the sound a bit more for others.

It still won’t be suitable for commuting, but it might be salveageable for running.

30 minutes with a needle and thread later, and this is the result:

This should be banned

1 roll of black elastic and some black thread was all that was needed.

A couple of pockets on each side for the conductors, closed on three edges and open on the final one to slip the conductors in and out.

Elastic pockets

A larger pocket on the rear to put in the control unit.

And finally a moveable elastic wrap to hold the control unit in place.

Safe and secure

It actually works ok.  Sure I look like an idiot, but that is my default look, so no biggy…

Completely finished tie

Final touch on the tie was to add the holding loop on the back. I tried to make one out of satin, but the edges frayed way too much. A quick trip to John Lewis to pick up some ribbon and this was the result.

Really finished!

Here it is, modeled in inimitable fashion by yours truly.

Don’t worry, this isn’t the shirt for the wedding…

Pocket squares and a new machine

Due to the generosity of my impending mother-in-law, I now have a new sewing machine to play with, after mine died a burny smelling death.

I was going to knock up a couple of pocket squares by hand, and try and roll the edges and slip stitch them so the stitches wouldn’t show, but I wanted to give my new machine a go and I figured that the way you fold the pocket square, no-one will ever see the edges anyway. All I needed was a quick hem to stop the edges fraying, so here we are.

Pocket kinda-square

New sewing machine is pretty nice, but why is every machine a nightmare to thread? There must be an easier solution.
One more tie to go and then I am done with satin for good, too slippy by half.

Also, how the hell do you sew corners without them looking all scrappy? I should probably google that.

Tie number 3!

I think I have cracked it 🙂

Attempt number 3. This time I used the proper fabric and took my time over it all, took about 5-6 hours in total I expect. Same pattern I cut out from my skinny tie last time, but I added on about a centimetre extra one each side, and cut the fabric with the bias this time. Much easier to work with if you do that, there is a reason they tell you to it seems…

Finished!

The finished article, not too bad at all 🙂

Look how neat it is…

The lining was much neater this time, I had the genius idea of turning the tie inside out and sewing it, then reversing it afterwards, which was a lot easier thas the slip stitching I was doing before, especially as satin is a nightmare to work with.

X marks the spot

I even managed to put a little X shaped holding stitch at each end, to give it a little more of a “finished” look.

Seems a good seam

Plus, I managed to do an invisible ladder stitch up the centre line, which I’m very proud of. In fact I very proud of the finished article, not bad for my third ever tie, or even my third ever hand-sewn thing at all!