Self Fabric Belt

You may remember the great 1960's dress that I made for myself a few months ago and wrote about here.  I loved the way it turned out when I finished it, but I thought that a belt would really finish it off just perfectly. 

I found a great self fabric belt tutorial that gave me the confidence that I could make my own belt out of the (small amount!) of leftover fabric I still had.  But I was a little stumped about what kind of buckle I would use.  I was originally thinking just a plain silver buckle (which I wasn't totally thrilled with), until I ran across an Etsy shop called Michelle's Musings that makes the coolest fabric belt buckles out of your choice of fabric.  All you need is a 4"x4" scrap of fabric, and Michelle will make you a professional looking buckle.  The fabric looks like it is pressed into the buckle somehow and it looks great!  And there are no exposed raw fabric edges anywhere on the buckle.

I gathered my belt-making supplies (the buckle, my leftover fabric and some cotton belting):

and I finished the belt in a couple of hours.  The tutorial I referenced is right in that a tube turner is very useful for turning out the fabric for the belt.  And, it does take plenty of patience trying to slide the belting into the fabric - I used the stick part of the tube turner to facilitate this (a chopstick would work here too!).



I love how the belt turned out!  I think it totally completes the dress.