Tutorial Tuesday - Sinar Tichel

This weeks Tutorial is a very basic Sinar Tichel.  A Sinar Tichel is also called an Apron Tichel because of it's apron like shape.  It is basically a center square with two bands on either side that wrap around the head.  Depending on how you put together your Sinar Tichel you can create a beautiful layered but still relatively thin and cool head wrap.

                   

1 - This first step to making a Sinar Tichel that truly fits you is taking some measurements (I'm going to give my measurements as examples but be aware I have a big head so you might not want to use my measurements for your Sinar).  Measure around your hair line to the back of your head - basically where the edge of your tichel usually rests.   Subtract at least two inches to allow room for tying the side bands. (24 inches - 2 = 22 inches for me)  This will be measurement A.  Now measure from your hairline or wherever the front of your tichel usually sits over the top of your head and back to the base of your skull or wherever the bottom of your tichel usually rests.  You should be wearing the largest base material (bun, volumizer, shaper, ect) you plan on using under your Sinar Tichel when you take this measurement to avoid making it too short.  Then add 2 or 3 inches.  You can always take some off later but if you make it too short you're in trouble. (17 inches + 3 = 20 inches for me) This is measurement B.  For the band length, use your initial hairline measurement and add a few inches to allow for ties and tucking. (I added 6 inches to my initial 24 inch around the head measurement to get 30 inch bands).  This is measurement C.  The band width will vary from project to project and often fabric to fabric if you are using two different fabrics for your bands so use your judgement on appropriate band width.

2 - Now that you know your measurements you can start looking through your fabric stash to find something you like.  I usually make a big pile of all the fabrics and trims I feel might work and then layer them until I find a set that works well together.  If you're going to the fabric store you can do the same thing you'll just have infinitely more possibilities. Once you know which fabrics you want to use, determine which fabric will be the main body of the tichel and which ones will be the side bands.  Decide how wide you want your side bands to be.  I usually make bands out of thick material narrower and thin material wider because they don't add much volume to the overall tichel. 

 For my tichel I decided on a mottled crushed velvet for the body, a solid velvet for one side band and a mottled sheer fabric with gold dots for the other side band.  I made my velvet side band 5 inches and my sheer side band twice that.  I really wanted some trim on this Sinar but I didn't have any in a color that would work so I scavenged an old gold tone cloth belt that I used to add another element to the tichel. 

3 - Once you've decided on the various elements, cut out the pieces of your tichel.  If you have a quilter's ruler, it comes in very handy at this point.  In the photo you can see I laid out the tichel fabrics once they were cut out to get an idea of my finished product.

4 - Roll, pin and sew all your edges that need to look nice and finished.  Sheer fabric is difficult to sew on a household sewing machine.  If you don't like the stitch you end up with on your sewing machine, you can look up some of the hand stitching techniques for making wedding veils and the like.  If you have trim to add to some of the pieces this would be time to do it.

5 - Finish all the edges that wont be seen with an overlock stitch (I call it the poor man's serger).  The overlock stitch is fairly common on all newer sewing machines but if you have an older machine, you can achieve similar results by running a very compact zigzag stitch close to the edge of your fabric.

6 - If your bands are different widths, use a basting stitch to gather your wider side down to the width of your smaller side.  Gathering fabric like this would be a tutorial all by itself so if you are not familiar with the technique I recommend the directions here.

7 - Pin your bands to the body of your tichel.  Make sure the pretty sides of the fabric are facing each other so when you fold it out the side of the fabric you want to show is facing out.  I decided not to sew my old belt/trim down to one of the fabrics since it is already finished on both sides and having it loose gives me even more options.  It is being attached to the body at the same point at the solid velvet band but otherwise allowed to float free.  So it's almost like I have 3 bands instead of the normal two.

8 - Once you have laid out the tichel and determined everything is in place and facing the correct direction, sew the bands onto the body of the tichel.

9 - Get wrapping!!  Your Sinar Tichel is done!

The color looks drastically different in the pictures where I am wearing it because I had to use a different camera to take them.



Just in case this is not the style of Sinar Tichel you were looking to make, here are all the other Sinar Tichel Tutorials I've found so far -

The Daily Tichel
Be Happy for this Moment. This Moment is Your Life.
Proud Mommy of 4
Calico Sisters