I took apart 2 professionally-made velvet scrunchies. Here’s how to create scrunchies like stores! I even created free scrunchie patterns based on them. They come in 4 sizes: mini, regular, large, and extra large.
How professionals make velvet scrunchies
Here are the scrunchies I bought and deconstructed:
One of the big differences between the budget and high-end scrunchies was the fabric.
The H&M scrunchie was made from polyester and elastane. The fabric is called velour. Velour is a stretchy knit fabric, whereas velvet is a woven fabric with no stretch.
The one from Lily Silk was 100% silk velvet.
The elastics used inside were also different. The H&M scrunchie used a normal 1/4″ flat braid elastic. You can get this easily from craft stores. The Lily Silk one used a special hair band. It was a circle of thick stretchy fabric (some type of knit ribbing) that curls in on itself. It was thick, soft and spongy.
The construction methods were similar. They both used the technique I show in the tutorial below. The only difference was how the hole was closed at the end. The H&M scrunchie was topstitched closed on a sewing machine. The stitching was visible. The Lily Silk scrunchie was hand sewn with an invisible stitch.
How to make velvet scrunchies (sewing tutorial)
The velvet scrunchies I studied used this sewing method.
The only difference I made when sewing velour (stretchy ‘velvet’) was using a short straight stitch, rather than a regular straight stitch. I used a stitch length of 2. This allowed the seam to stretch quite a bit. The seams on scrunchies won’t be under much pressure so they didn’t need to be super stretchy.
This might surprise you.
Normally when we sew stretchy fabrics we use stretchy stitches, like zig zags. This is to make sure that the stitches don’t pop when stretched. I tried using a tiny zig zag stitch (the ‘lightning bolt’) but it created problems. The needle kept moving left and right which caused the layers of fabric to shift. It made it hard to sew a straight line of stitching. It was easier to sew the seams with a straight stitch.
I got this idea from the H&M scrunchie I studied. It was also made from velour (stretchy ‘velvet’). The store used a normal straight stitch to construct it. Their trick to make this work was to reduce the stitch length to 2mm. A shorter stitch length has a bit more ‘give’. Now that I’ve tried it myself I also recommend using these settings for velour.