Belt Week Winners

Thanks for all who participated in Belt Week!  I had fun making a few to liven up my wardrobe, and I had fun seeing what you came up with! 

 

First Place:  The Girdy Belt, by Katy of No Big Dill

It was total coincidence that she ended up making a belt the day I posted about Belt Week!  I’m so glad she entered because really?  I LOVE this belt!)  And lucky for us, she has a tutorial for it!

 

Second Place:  Leather and Jute Belt, by Steffanie of Sew Grown

Steffanie also has a tutorial for this, and a tutorial for another belt that is also very cute!  I just love the flower on this one—the way the leather loops around it is my favorite part.  And the fact that she used some placemats for the rest is super cool.

 

Third Place Winner:  Granny belt, by Nat of By Night

I actually crochet just a little bit and really liked how Nat thought to use her skill on a belt.  I think it’s great!  Nat has an inspiring blog with some really creative ideas on it, so be sure to stop by and say hello!

 

Congratulations you three!  I will wait to hear from Katy on her 3 favorite Amy Butler patterns, then Steffanie will pick her two from the remaining, and Nat will receive the last one.  They are all great patterns, so you won’t be disappointed ladies! 

Thank you EVERYONE who participated!  You all made such cute belts, I wish I had a pattern to give to all of you!  I really enjoyed seeing the entries, so thank you!   You are all so talented!

Gathered Belt Tutorial

This is the final belt tutorial for Belt Week!  I hope you found one or two tutorials to give a try!

If you make any of the belts using my tutorials, I’d love if you uploaded them to flickr so I can see them!  I need to do another Feature Friday in the next month!

Today’s belt is just a little bit more work than the others, but still super easy.  That’s the great thing about belts—it seems that many of them can be made in less than an hour, most of them under half an hour, and you have a great new accessory for your wardrobe!

First measure your waist, where you are wanting the belt to fall.  Subtract 3” from that measurement to get the length of the back part of the belt..  The width on my belt is 3”.  So whatever your waist measurement - 3 inches x 3” (unless you want a wider or narrower belt).  The – 3 inches is for the gap in the belt—so adjust according to your desires—the ends will be finished and take off a bit of the middle portion as well, so keep that in mind.  For the front of you belt, half your above measurement for the length, and add it to the total length of above.  If you want it more gathered, then add more inches here.  You also need four pieces of double fold bias tape, 1/2” wide.  See the following paragraph to help you out.

Example:  So let’s just PRETEND and say my waist was 20” (just to pick an easy number).  I will have one piece of fabric cut 18” x 3”, and one piece that is cut 27” x 3” (because half of 18” is 9”, so 18” + 9” is 27”).  I will also need two 18” pieces of double folded bias tape, and two 13” pieces of double folded bias tape or ribbon for tying.  Any questions?  Feel free to email me!

Hopefully you stuck with me through the measurements!

So you’ll need your measurements from above to make two strips of fabric, plus double folded bias tape.

Take the longer of the two strips, and on one of the long sides, sew two basting stitches close together.  Be sure to take the narrower side of the bias tape and stitch no lower than that—otherwise you’ll have to un-pick and no one wants to do that (so your gathering stitches don’t show).

 

Repeat on other long side as well.

 

Start pulling the top threads and gather until the entire thing is as long as your other strip.

Place the other strip of fabric and the gathered piece wrong sides together and pin.

 

Baste the strips together, just making sure to go no lower than your furthest basting stitch in.

 

Zig-zag the edges of the entire piece now.

 

Cut two pieces of double folded bias tape to be the same length as the fabric portion.  Cut two more pieces of bias tape or ribbon to be used for tying the belt.

To make the ties, place the bias tape about 1/4” from one of the short ends, onto the non-gathered side.

 

Fold down the end 1/4”, then another 1/4”.

 

Turn over onto the gathered side and topstitch closely together, making sure to catch the bias tape each time. 

Take your longer strips of bias tape, open, and fold it inside itself.

Place one of the corners on the end inside that fold, making sure the narrower side of the bias tape is on the gathered side.

Then fold down over.

Sew the bias tape closely to the edge, doing the same folding method you used above for the other end.  Repeat with other raw edge of belt.

Sew each bias tape piece used for the ties together to itself.  That sounds extremely weird, but we’re not sewing them to each other, just sewing it so the bias tape doesn’t open.

That’s all!  Now you have a cute, gathered belt!

 

Next 3 photos courtesy of my 5 year old (who is actually pretty cute with the camera, telling me things like, “Let’s move into the shade so the shadows aren’t as bad.”  He’s listening to what little his mommy knows!).

 

Today is the last day to enter your belts you’ve made, anytime in your life.   Entries are accepted until 11:59 PM MST, Friday night, November 12th.

You can also link any belts by going to this post.

Vinyl Belt Buckle and Interchangeable Belt Tutorial

That’s quite the mouthful, isn’t it? 

I’ve wanted to make belts with buckles before, but I have a hard time finding the buckles with the center bars at any craft stores near me.  Sometimes I just don’t feel like paying shipping—you will often end up spending over $5.00 for one buckle that way. 

Thus, the vinyl belt buckle was born.  SO simple!  And I’m going to show you how to make a belt interchangeable!

You can make the other side of the belt with a different fabric to make it reversible, like the one I googled and found here on Tarilyn’s Show’n Tell. 

OR you can use velcro to take them off the buckle and then make as many as you’d like to interchange. 

To make the belt buckle, download the free pattern here. 

You’ll need:

4” x 7” piece vinyl

glue stick

piping (optional)

1” piece velcro

 

First cut out two vinyl buckle pieces using the pattern.  My vinyl is pretty nice, thick stuff, and I only had to buy a really small part.  The back isn’t like the tablecloth vinyl you’ll see sometimes.  See picture below.

 

Optional step:  add some piping around the buckle outer.  It will give it a more finished appearance and can be super cute with contrasting colors.  I’d glue it and then sew it as close as you could to the edge, if you add this step. 

Place wrong sides together and glue. Let it dry for a few minutes, then sew around the outside circle, and the inside D shapes.  It’s a little tricky, and as you can see, I need a little practice to get it perfectly even!  

You know, I’d like the buckle to be a little firmer, but I’m unsure of how to do that yet.  If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.  Maybe another layer in between the two would help, but I don’t think my machine is up for that!

For the belt, I used the Plaid Belt tutorial on Sew4Home.  I just added piping to it, and also adjusted the width to 4” to account for the difference in the size of the buckle.  If you are unsure how to add piping, you can see some tips on my post here, or a really great tutorial is Lindsay’s post here on The Cottage Home. 

I used the rounded tip and added what I needed to.

 

Just a quick tip—to get my needle close enough to sew to the left of the piping stitching, I have to adjust my stitch width only over a bit—moving the needle to the left.  I also use my zipper foot.

It can get tricky around the curves, so make sure the needle is down, and then lift the presser foot and turn everything until you get around the curve.

I started on the straight end and curved the piping down.

Then I put the right sides together and followed with the tutorial on Sew4Home.  I left my gap on the long edge close to the straight end so I wouldn’t have to deal with the two ends of the piping ending.  I did not topstitch around the entire thing, though that might be better with the opening you have to stitch closed. 

One more tip:  sew on the side of the fabric that has the piping stitched to it, so you can follow the stitching used to attach the piping.

 

Test your straight end on your buckle, and see where you want to sew the velcro so it can wrap around the buckle center bar.

 

I did color around the edge of my vinyl buckle so that it matched better.

That’s it!  Now you can make as many belts as you’d like to that match your new buckle!

And even if you don’t make the buckle, now you can get a center bar buckle and interchange the belts you made with velcro!

It was hard for me to post this without making another belt to interchange with the buckle and show it in the pictures!  I honestly just didn’t have time.  But at least you know now how to do it if you want to!

Don’t forget to enter your own belts for the contest here.

You can still link up any belts you’ve made on this post here.