Fabric Belt for My Spring for Cotton Dress

Hi,

Do you make accessories for your sewing projects? The most I’ve done is make a couple of belts – one ribbon belt with a fabric covered buckle for my Bluegingerdoll Winifred Dress and two fabric belts to match the dresses from vintage patterns. My latest fabric belt is the contrasting hot pink belt I made to go with the dress I made for the Spring for Cotton sewalong organized by Lucky Lucille. And this time I took accessories one step further and put together a fascinator by attaching a feathered headpiece to a hair band, which I’ll blog about later. 

Because I didn’t actually start sewing the dress until the last week of the sewalong (I made a muslin first), I didn’t have much time to make the belt. I had to sew it after I got home from work so I could photograph the ensemble the following day. The deadline for photos was April 30. Because I the time crunch, I decided to take my chances and improvise a short cut to make the belt.

I used the same fabric as the underlining of my dress – this hot pink cotton from Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics. Here’s a detail of two fabrics. I love how the pink pops through the eyelet fabric.

For the belt backing, I used 3/4″ (1.9 cm) buckram ban-roll that I got at Britex Fabrics. I work a few blocks from Britex so I can easily pop over there during my lunch break or after work. I told Natalie, the notions floor manager, that I was going to make a fabric-covered belt and I needed some belt backing. She suggested using ban-roll. I decided to give it a try. It’s wasn’t very thick but is stiff yet flexible.

My short cut was using double-sided fusible tape (see photo below) – to avoid basting. It has a paper backing. You iron it on your fabric, then peel off the paper, place the other piece of fabric on top of the fusible and iron those pieces together.

I cut the end of the ban-roll so it would have a triangular shape on the end. I cut two pieces of fabric – the first one would go partially around the ban-roll and the second would be ironed so it would be exactly the same width as the first layer. The second piece goes directly on top of the first and then they are top stitched together.

In this photo, I’ve placed the fusible on top of the ban-roll. Then I ironed the fusible to the ban-roll.

Then I peeled off the paper from the fusible tape, folded the fabric over the ban-roll and ironed it to the fusible.

Next I ironed another piece of fusible to the wrong side of the belt….

… removed the paper…

… and ironed the second layer to the first one. They sort of stuck together but not so much at the point because of the folds there.

I moved my needle over to the left and used my blind hem foot to top stitch the belt together. I sewed slowly because I could tell that my fabric layers were shifting slightly – uh, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to skip the basting. I used my fingers to make sure the fabric didn’t get out of alignment. If I make a fabric-covered belt again, I think I’ll use the fusible for the first layer but baste the second layer to the first – less shifting that way.

Then I used a buckle kit I got from Lacis Retail Store (you can also get them at the Lacis online store, search “buckle kit”) to make a matching fabric-covered buckle. It comes with a piece of double-sided adhesive that you stick to your fabric, cut around and peel. (For more details see How to Make a Fabric-Covered Belt Buckle.)

Then you stick it to buckle, trimming around curves where needed…

…and you’re done! I didn’t bother with belt tong or making holes for my belt because it didn’t need it. The belt seemed to stay in place. Maybe if I were using a slippery fabric instead of quilt-weight, I would have made some holes and added rivets. I like the ban-roll. It was a good weight for this belt.

Well, actually, I thought I was done but I realized later that I forgot to make the belt carrier – a loop of fabric to prevent the end of the belt from flapping around. Oops. Too bad I didn’t notice that before I did the photo shoot for the dress. But I did make one just before I went to work the next day because it was going to be my day into night ensemble. I was going to a jazz concert that evening.

Here’s the completed ensemble!

If had another day, I might have made a clutch purse. I have some leftover fabric because I was going to make a matching jacket. But it was really boxy and I didn’t like how the muslin looked on me so I skipped the cropped jacket. Maybe I’ll make the purse this summer.

Thanks for visiting!