A warmer winter headband, and a use for an orphaned glove

I am a woman of many talents, foremost among them being a propensity for losing my winter accessories. Last year, I actually started documenting these losses in my Anger Management Fund (which I zeroed out last April when I decided my money would be better spent recovering from Hansel's huge broken leg bill, and never restarted). From January through March of 2015, I misplaced 1 hat, 1 pair of earmuffs, 1 coat (yes, a whole coat—this is almost as bad as losing a dress), 1 umbrella, 1 (beloved) pair of mittens (in Iceland, of all the terrible places to lose a warm accessory) and 2 pairs of gloves. This year, my tally is already up to 2 pairs of gloves, and it hasn't even hit freezing yet.

It was after the Iceland incident that I realized I never ever get these things back (despite putting my name and contact info on a little tag that I laboriously staple into every single item—I actually got a rubber stamp printed for this purpose), and I waste a lot of money building up a glove collection every year, so I might as well try to make up for my misfortunes by capitalizing on those of others. 

Thus, I vowed to salvage all the fallen pieces of weather protection (including umbrellas) that I happened to find in my daily activities. Almost immediately, I found this fuzzy purple earwarmer abandoned on a sidewalk in Reykjavik.

I took it to our hotel and washed it in the sink, wore it, and rapidly concluded that Iceland, which must surely be the Bitter Wind Capital of the World, was no place for this mostly decorative accessory. The knit was so open that the wind just tore right through it, freezing my ears as though they were not covered at all. But still, I kept it, because (well, one, it was cute, but two...) when you lose things like I lose things, having any kind of semi-functional headband in your backup collection is better than none at all.

I also began racking up single, mismatched gloves. The generic black stretch knit ones can be easily paired with other lost souls, but the more unique ones mostly just sit around in my stash...at least they did, until it occurred to me to use one of the many lonely gloves as a liner for my mostly worthless headband.

I chose a scruffy old fleece glove that had seen better days. I've never been a fan of fleece (look how it pills!), so I knew I wouldn't miss it.

I found the largest surface on the glove (the back of the hand and wrist) and cut it into two approximately equal rectangles. (Photo taken before I cut the piece on the right in half)

Then, while wearing the headband to get the placement right, I noted where the band touched my ears, and placed a fleece piece over each spot.

I pinned the pieces on with safety pins for a try-on and verified these would be good spots for permanent attachment.

Because the headband is a lot more stretchy than the fleece, I had to attach the fleece very loosely, letting it wrinkle in the middle so the headband could stretch around it. 

Then I sewed each piece down at the corners only (in contrasting thread so you can see it!). 

And that's all there was to it! I wore the headband to work one day last week, and experienced pleasantly toasty ears despite the 40-degree weather! I knew my new headband and I were going to be great friends. 

Until, of course, after just one wear, I lost it.

Haha, just kidding! After several days of bewailing the loss of what was clearly my cutest winter head covering, and mourning all the wasted work that had gone into this project, I returned to the office after a week-long holiday to find my purple headband hiding in the bottom of my backpack. This old girl is getting a contact-me tag for sure!