Making a fabric-covered belt

My encounters with vintage fashion on my Edinburgh trip weren't just limited to the Biba exhibition; I came home with dresses from both Fantouche Vintage and Carnivàle Vintage. (I also came home with some more yarn from Kathy's Knits, and the wonderful Edinburgh Fabrics came up trumps with supplies for my 1915 ensemble, but those are posts for other weeks!)

Anyway, moving on. The dress from Carnivàle is a dressmaker-made cotton shirtwaist in a fabulous print. But like so many vintage dresses, it has lost the matching belt which once fitted through its belt carriers. It would definitely look better with a belt, so I set about making a replacement. I was never going to be able to match the greens or the gold in the print, so I went for a dark grey instead.

The fabric

Tasha Could Make That has this excellent video on making matching belts for dresses, but she uses a foundation of belting, which appears to be fabric-covered plastic strip sold in a roll. I've been unable to find anywhere in the UK which sells this, so have come up with an alternative approach, which I’ve now used several times. On the basis that I can't be the only person who needs to do this, I've attempted to write down my method in case it's helpful to anyone else. (Apologies for the fact that all the images will appear to be the wrong way round to most readers - because I'm left-handed I sew from left to right.)

Start off with your buckle. I was lucky to find this mottled green one in my buckle box, which was ideal for the dress. The belt width will be determined by the height of the hole inside the buckle, in this case just under 2.5cm. The belt needs to be wide enough to 'catch' on the buckle, otherwise it may slide open. Don't make the base too wide, however, as it will have fabric wrapped around it.

Having the perfect buckle was definitely a good start

Instead of belting, I use pelmet buckram (also called pelmet backing) for the belt base. This is a stiff woven fabric, 5-6"/12.5-15cm wide, and coated on both sides with heat-activated adhesive. It comes in rolls and is sold by the metre. Cut out a piece twice the width of the belt, and long enough to include both a wrap around the centre of the buckle and an overlap (don't use your dressmaking scissors to do this, the adhesive granules will do them no favours!). Fold it in half lengthways.

Folding counteracts its tendency to curl

You could attach the belt fabric directly to this, but I always make a base layer of plain, thinnish, cotton. This is cut slightly longer than the belt, and about 2.5 times the width. I also prefer to only have one layer of buckram around the buckle, so I cut off about 1"/2.5cm from one side.

Set up ready to start ironing

Wrap the cotton tightly over the unfolded edge, and iron it to melt the adhesive. Be careful not to let the iron touch the buckram at all, so don't go all the way up to the edge of the cotton.

Do this all the way along the belt

Then repeat with the other side.

Make sure the fabric is tightly wrapped

The belt will be very pliable when it's warm, but will turn rigid when it cools. I always leave mine on the ironing board until it's entirely cold, to make sure I end up with a flat belt.

Trim the end with the double thickness of buckram to a point. Cut a scrap of the outer fabric into a hexagon to fit the belt end, and sew it onto the wrong side of the belt (the side with the overlapped cotton).

This method avoids the bulk of lots of wrapped fabric

The outer fabric should also be cut slightly longer than the belt, and about 2.5 times the width. Trim one end to the point shape, fold the edges under, mitre the point, and sew the edges onto the scrap attached to the belt point. Then fold the fabric tightly round the belt and sew down the rest of the point.

Hopefully the picture makes it clearer

Work along the belt, pinning the fabric tightly and slip-stitching it into place.

The base fabric provides something to pin into

Belt covering completed

I tend to leave some fabric beyond the buckram at the buckle end. Fold the end of the belt round the buckle, and sew it down.

The buckle attached

Because I am a completist, I like to make a belt loop as well. These are fiddly, but I eventually worked out a method which works for me. Cut out a strip of fabric approx. 3.5 times the width of the desired loop, and long enough to go round two layers of the belt plus a decent seam allowance. Fold it lengthways to the width of the loop on one side, and a narrow seam allowance on the other side, and press. Then fold it lengthways again, and press firmly.

The green line marks the final fold, gauge shown for scale

Diagram of the folded fabric

Unfold the strip, wrap it round the two layers of belt, and pin the ends together. This should be snug, but not really tight. Make sure that the fold lines are aligned.

Pinned together

Remove the pinned strip from the belt, and sew along the pinned line. Do not cut the thread when finished.

Sewn together

Trim off the excess seam allowance, and finger press open.

Ready to fold up

You can now fold up the loop along the pressed lines, and slip stitch the edge into place.

Sewing it together

You now have a completed belt, with a matching belt loop.

All done

And here is the dress, worn with the belt. It's a bit short-waisted, even for me, and I don't normally show my knees, but I still really like it.

I think the grey works well

It's fun to make a shiny new garment from scratch, but there's a different, but equal (to my mind, at least), satisfaction to be gained from a project which enhances something already made but a little lacking.

Finally, I'm aware that this tutorial is a bit sketchy in places. As ever, if you get stuck trying to follow it, please get in touch and I'll do my best to help. Happy belt making!

The guilty secret

Only a short post this week, as I am not long back from my Edinburgh trip. Waiting for me when I got home was this new addition to my collection of dressmaking publications.

Simplicity Sewing Book, 1947

I must admit that this had caught my eye because of the illustration. It's very rare in my experience to see any publication about home sewing actually feature someone in the act of stitching on the cover. All my issues of Vogue Pattern Book have a cover of someone wearing a garment made from a Vogue pattern, but no indication of how it came into being. It's as if the clothes were made by mice in the night.

From The Tailor of Gloucester - this is not how the magic happens!

My next Simplicity Sewing Book is about a decade later.

From 1958

The only hint in the illustration that this might relate to sewing is the dress pattern the model holds. Upside down, and with part of the number obscured.

Close-up of the pattern

Thanks to the wonder that is CoPA, I was able to identify it as pattern number 1951, from 1957. It's not the dress that the model is wearing, and nowhere is there any indication of which (if any) Simplicity pattern was used for the red dress. I drew a complete blank however, trying to identify the pattern on the cover of the 1947 issue.

Whereas that issue was purely instructional, this one includes a few advertisements.

Back cover advertisement

Jump forward two decades, and things are more whimsical. There's sewing equipment, but it's used as jewellery and hat trimming only.

From 1975

The back cover ad is one of a series which also appeared in Vogue Pattern Book. It's for Trylko, the new synthetic sister thread to Sylko.

Because heaven forbid you should have skills

The implication is that making your own clothes is something you want to keep quiet about. In fact, the copy even goes so far as to say, "So no one will ever know you can make a suit like this" (my emphasis), as though even possessing the ability to do this was questionable, let alone using it. It's true that there was a certain negativity about hand-made clothes by this time (even though dressmaking was still taught as a useful skill in schools), but it seems odd to see it reinforced in a publication aimed at sewists. It's hard to imagine publications for any other hobby (especially male ones?) being so furtive about the very thing they are trying to sell.