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Leather Obi Belt with 3D Flower

When I was making the belt for my high school reunion outfit I was rushing that day to get it finished in time to wear to the reunion. It was a little rough so I wanted to give it another shot, this time with a bit of a variation (also made using pieces of a former leather jacket). I altered the pattern for the petals and made them into a 3D flower.

I started out by making the petals of the flower. I altered the original petal design to be wider so I could fold it over and glue (using E6000 -- I'm sure there's some sort of leather glue that would be better, but I just wanted to stick with what I had on hand this time).

I altered the direction of the fold so the petals wouldn't all be exactly the same. Hint: Only use a tiny bit of glue, using too much will interfere when sewing them on to the belt.

I clamped them and let them dry overnight. Bonus = I finally found a use for the cute, tiny clamps I picked up on impulse one day -- I'm glad I did, they were exactly what I needed!

I cut out the other pieces in the same way as the previous obi belt, except with wider ties and added seam allowance around the edges of the main belt pieces.

I sewed a triangle piece to each side of the rectangular piece, making sure right sides were together, opened the seam allowance on the back side, top stitched on either side of the seam and clipped some of the excess away at the edges.

I folded over 1/2" around the outer edges and top stitched.

When transitioning from the triangular to the rectangular piece there was some excess bunched up, so I cut a small slit, close to, but not touching the edge, overlapped the sides and sewed.

Then I sewed the ties to the ends of each triangular piece.

I arranged the petals for the flower and secured them with just a tiny dab of glue. I used a spice jar (the perfect size!) to hold them down until they dried.

After the glue was dry I sewed the inner corners of the petals onto the belt.

And I had my new belt!

I really love this version of the belt. I ended up breaking three leather needles making this one, but I think it was worth it!

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Suede Flower Leather Obi Belt Tutorial

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday filled with gratitude, family, laughter and love! I know mine was. And now I'm fully embracing all the Christmas and holiday decorations, music, lights, projects, etc, etc. Bring it on! (Of course at the same time I'm kind of freaking out that I don't know what I'm going to do for gifts for everyone -- especially since our gift budget is basically non-existent. I think most are going to involve some stash-liquidation on my part!)

Today I also realized that I never posted about the dress and belt I made for my 10 year high school reunion. Here's the photo of the final product:

Today I'm going to share the tutorial for the leather and suede obi belt.

I started with a black leather jacket and a brown suede mini skirt I found at the thrift store on a 50% off day. (That's a great way to get leather at an affordable price, and reduce/reuse/recycle!) A while back I had cut out the lining, zippers, facings, etc and cut them into non-sewn-together pieces.

One of the things I love about leather is that it doesn't unravel or fray, so you can leave the edges raw. Of course folded and sewn edges have a more professional/finished look, but sometimes I'm just glad to be able to cut a corner here and there. :)

I started out by cutting the pieces using my quilting ruler and rotary cutter (I LOVE those things!).

Main rectangle: 5" wide x 17.5" long
(I'm tall and have a long torso, so I would suggest about 4" wide for a woman of average height. Also the length was my waist circumference in inches, divided by two, adding two inches, and adding one inch for seam allowance.)
Triangle pieces: 5" wide for 1/2", then down to a point x 12" long
(I just estimated this one, but it ended up being about 3/4 of half of my waist circumference, plus 1" for seam allowance.)
Ties: 3/8" wide x 20" and 18" long
(I totally estimated and just used the longest piece of leather I had. This is how long they ended up. One side is longer because the flower is slightly to the side and the straps tie at the center of the flower.)
Flower petals: I drew the shape of a flower petal and traced it with a fabric pencil onto the suede. I flipped the pattern over for a couple of the petals so they all would not be exactly the same shape. I cut them out on the inside of the pencil line so I wouldn't have to worry about trying to wash/rub it off.

Be sure to use leather needles. They are stronger and sharper than regular needles. I would also recommend using a thicker, stronger thread. It will help it all hold together well, and look better, too. If you have one, use a teflon or roller presser foot as well, since the suede side of leather tends to grip as it's going through the sewing machine and one of those feet will help it glide smoothly. (I didn't have one, but it still worked out pretty well, with some concerted effort.)

Start out by sewing the triangle pieces to the sides of the rectangle piece. Leather can't be pinned in the normal way, so I stuck pins straight in, inside the seam allowance (since once you put a hole in leather, even a tiny one, it won't go away).

After that, top stitch the seam on either side, both to give it a finished look and to lay the seam allowance down flat.

Then stitch all the way around the outer edge of the belt. For a more finished look you can simply fold over the edge and top stitch just like the other seam. Why didn't I do that? I have no idea... :) But if you do, be sure to add the extra width to the rectangle and triangle pieces to make sure your belt ends up the width that you want.

For the ties, trim the point off the triangle pieces to make it 3/8". Place the tie under the point, overlapping about 3/4" and sew it on by stitching back and forth several times in a straight line.

Visualize dividing the main rectangular part of the belt into thirds and place the flower petals on one of the dividing lines (so it's to one side, instead of in the middle). Glue them down with a small amount of glue (I used super glue since I needed something that would dry quickly) placed near the center of the petal, so the glue will not be in the way when you sew. (I took this photo prior to sewing, since I was testing out how it would look, and I wanted to remember the placement of the petals when it came time to sew them on)

Using a free-motion presser foot (so you can turn smoothly while sewing -- see below), sew the petals on by stitching along the inside of the edge for each one.

Source

And then you are done!

Homemade Silky Fairy Wings -- Christmas Gift Idea

I've been having a bout of craft ADD lately. There have been so many projects that have popped up with higher priority while I've been in the middle of other projects, so I've had to stop one thing, change gears and complete another thing before going back to the first project. But I have been sewing up a storm lately and that feels good, plus I think they're all great projects so I'm extra excited about posting them all! (P.S. No offense intended to those who are affected by ADD for real.)

One of those urgent projects (well, two of them actually) were birthday presents for my son's friends who had a birthday today. They are twins, a boy and a girl. For a while I was feeling a little bad because our budget is tight and I wasn't sure what I was going to do for gifts. Then it dawned on me -- for the boy I would make a cape just like my son's Superman cape, and I would make wings for the girl. It was budget friendly and fairly simple to make... although for the wings I would have to make things up as I went along. Thankfully I figured it all out and now I can pass it on to you!

By the way, both these projects would work great for halloween costumes, dress ups or Christmas gifts. I think I'm going to make some for my young relatives.

For the cape I made one in the same way I made my son's Superman cape, except instead of Velcro tabs on the corners, I sewed on strips of fabric (mine were 27" x 3", with a 1/2" seam allowance on all sides) to make ties, and sewed them on like this:

This is the underside of the cape

Here's how it turned out (Seymour modeling):

The wings are a knock-off of a very awesome company -- I really hope they don't mind me saying this! -- Sarah's Silks. They make incredibly beautiful playsilks and silk dress-ups. They make real silk wings that are hand-dyed in gorgeous colors and patterns. If you have the money (they're $30) I would recommend buying them because they are well made by a great company. But I couldn't afford that much, or the shipping time, so I needed to make my own. Plus I thought the ribbon that had to be criss-crossed around and tied was a bit too much work from my experience with how often kids like to put things on and take them off again. I decided to use simple elastic as the way to keep them on the shoulders and wrists.

I started with about a yard of polyester chiffon. Since it was 60" wide I decided to cut it in half, as well as cut off the selvedges, so I ended up with a piece about 30" x 36". To "cut" the fabric and make sure there are right angles at the corners and it's not skewed in a funny way make a little cut at the right length, then rip it all the way down. There will be threads coming off, but just pull them off and you'll end up with a fairly clean, straight edge.

Chiffon tends to be fairly difficult to work with, whether polyester or silk, so when hemming all four edges to make clean finished seams I had to fold it over once, pin it, then fold it over again to make sure it wouldn't slip out.

Next I folded the shorter sides together so the longer side was divided in half, and marked -- with a water-soluble marker -- a line 5/8" away, parallel to the fold line. I went slow so it would soak through to the other side and I ended up with two lines 1 1/4" apart at the center of the rectangle of fabric.

Then I sewed a gathering stitch along both lines and set it aside. I cut a 25" long piece of 1 1/2" wide ribbon and sewed the ends with right sides together using a 1/2" seam allowance, then trimmed the corners of the seam allowance to make sure they don't stick out.

Also iron it so it is folded completely in half with the connecting seam at one end and a fold at the other. I slid the chiffon into the ribbon loop, evenly gathered the lines and sewed them into place on half of the ribbon. I left one half of the ribbon loose so I could stitch on the ribbon side and make it look nicer.

Next I cut a 32" piece of 1/4" elastic, overlapped the edges 1" and sewed it together (you can do this by hand or machine). I folded it into a loop and laid it on the back of the ribbon where I had sewed the chiffon, making sure the seam was within the edges of the ribbon. I stitched back and forth several times over the elastic.