With Jamaica 50 celebrations upon us, the black green and gold can be seen everywhere and now more than ever, we are proud to show up our colours in patriotism. With a little bit of wool, a couple yards of rickrack and elastic in black, gold and green, I’ve made some easy accents to add the colours to your looks. It’s great to add accents of the three colours to your look, instead of incorporating all three into the whole look, leaving you looking like a big flag, and it works very well with white, or just one of the three colours.

Here are a few ideas:

1. The headband: cut three equal lengths of gold, green and black wool. Plait the matching colours together and then plait the three plaits together creating a thick band in black, green and gold. Add beads to either end in either one or all three colours, and knot the ends to hold them in place. As simple as that, you’ve got a headband

2. The rosette brooch: is the exact same wool plait as we made before, but swirled into a tight circle. To reinforce it, cut out a circle from felt, and stitch end of plait to the centre. Wrap and stitch until you’ve completed the length of wool. You can add a brooch pin to the back for closure/attachment

3. The black belt: You will need: 3-inch elastic (in black, gold or green), 3-inch belt buckle, a yard each of rickrack in gold, green (and black). You will then: cut elastic and rickrack to your waist measurement, stitch contrasting rickrack to elastic an inch apart, attach buckle ends to either end of elastic and stitch closed. And you have a belt… ode to Jamaica.

4. The gold belt: Made the same as the black, but layered, and with one rickrack wider than the other rickrack.

Happy Independence, Jamaica, and watch the page for more great ideas for Jamaica 50.