Leaf buckle fabric belt and how I made it

leaf buckle belt

One of the many selling points of a vintage-style dress is the addition of a matching or co-ordinated fabric belt with a cute buckle. But as much as I love the look, I’ve always gone for the belt-free view just to avoid the extra work. What a shirker!

Until now that is. Until I made the Sew Over It Joan Dress. Apologies up front for the lack of said Joan shots but Mr O has done a bunk again and left me void of quality photography services. She’s all class is Joan, and no selfie is going to cut it, I’m afraid. Hoping to nab some shots in the next few days, though.

I found this cute little buckle, at my first visit to the Hammersmith Vintage Fair a few years ago. I’m not entirely sure how old it is or what it’s made of but it’s a weighty metal, inlayed with tiny turquoise and teal mosaic pieces. Shamefully I don’t even know what kind of leaf it is. Sycamore, grape vine? Any Girl Guides out there? It’s not cannabis thank goodness. That would be far too tacky!

The eureka moment to use it came in tandem with another when I remembered the lovely jade green wool crepe I’d squirrelled away for a vintage Hardy Amies number that I (ahem) put into Karen’s (DidYouMakeThat) Sewlution Jar just as many moons ago. So what a result. A pattern gifted by the lovely Alex at Sew Over It, perfect fabric in stash plus the prize jewel of a perfectly coordinated buckle!

So here’s how I made it. . .

Materials:

Fabric (waist measurement plus 4 inches x width to fit in buckle, plus seam allowance)

A length of Petersham waistband stiffener, 1 inch shy of fabric length and width to match

Velcro

matching thread.

 

Instructions:

With right sides together, pin fabric along the length, marking a gap either side of the centre point for turning. Sew along length with a regular stitch and then change to a longer length stitch or basting stitch for the gap:

pin fabric along length

Trim seam but leave the full allowance along the basted section:

trim seam allowance

Roll the seam from the edge to the centre of the tube and press the seams open:

press seam open

Unpick the central basting stitches to open the gap:

unpick stitching at gap

Turn the tube right side out, pulling each end through the central gap. You can do this by attaching a safety pin at one end and pulling through or if you don’t have one already, I wholly advise you to get one of these loop-turners! You just clip one open end and push the fabric over itself, like so:

loop turner

Give a good press, making sure that seam stays open and pressing the gap closed too.

 

give a good press

Insert the Petersham belt stiffener by attaching a large safety pin to one end and feeding through the central opening to one end. Repeat for the other end.

insert petersham belt stiffener

Ladder stitch the central and end openings closed and give another press:

ladder stitch

Top stitch on the right side. I find the stitch-in-the-ditch foot works a treat for this:

stitch in the ditch foot

Take a moment to admire said top-stitching. It’s the little things, you know! 😉

topstitching

Fold over and hand sew one end to the buckle. All buckles differ but same in principle:

attach one end to buckle

The next step is totally unsympathetic to any vintage techniques but I make no apologies because it works for me. I hand-sewed velcro to the other end to make it adjustable:

attach velcro

It’s foresight you see. There’ll be a few Christmas dinners before the year is out and I’m erring on the side of caution. Should have been a Girl Guide!

Hope you found this tutorial of some use I’ll be back soon to show how it in situ, on Joan!

TTFN x

 

Vintage western shirt #3… of the linen kind

 

70s shirt Butterick 5007

It’s been a while since I made Mr Ooobop something. Quite shameful really for all the lovely photos he takes for me. So I’m delighted to have finally finished his latest shirt. And he loves it, thankfully!

The hardest bit for me was being back behind the camera again. Well out of practice I was. But luckily Dan has more patience than me and was very obliging as I got him to mill around on Barnes common!

This is the third version I’ve made from the same pattern – Butterick 5007 – A 70s men’s western shirt.  The kind of shirt you have to imagine beyond the pattern pic:

butterick 5007 pattern cover

Mr O is quite good at that. Non-conformist to a T for Taurus he is, and believes very firmly that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So all that needed to be altered this time was the choice of fabric. The flowery fabric used in the last shirt I made him was gorgeous but faded so quickly in the wash. Such a shame. So he chose this gorgeous black linen with embroidered details.

butterick 5007 shirt

When we came to buy the fabric. I didn’t think I would have a problem with pattern matching because the little embroidered motifs were quite sparse but that’s where I massively slipped up. Didn’t really consider placement, did I…doh!

Placement isn’t really that difficult if you take time and consider each piece and where it’s going to sit with the adjoining pieces, of course, but when you’ve purchased only just enough fabric for the job and it was end of roll, it creates a problem or ten.

You can move the pieces around to work as much as you like but sometimes that ain’t very economical and you end up short of material for all the pieces. Luckily enough I had some spare plain black linen floating around because what was left didn’t leave suitable areas for the cuffs, collar stands and one of the pockets. I also used some of the plain stuff for the underside of the pocket flaps.

butterick 5007 mens shirt

It’s a close-fitting shirt, which required a bit of fitting but that was done on the first version, which incidentally has disappeared from my blog but here’s a pic of it. I just love the vintage Laura Ashley curtain fabric I rescued here. The beard, not so much!

B5007 with double bass

In all cases, the pointed collar is large. He likes it that way. But I did include a stiffer facing this time so it is even more exaggerated!

The back and front yokes are cut on the bias. Fine for the back but I did some serious head-scratching on the placement decisions for the front yokes. In my head I wanted the design flipped and symmetrical. Why my brain couldn’t let it lie I have no idea!

70s shirt back yoke

70s shirt front yokes

I love how the above picture shows the texture of the linen. It is one of my favourite fabrics to work with. And I’m told it feels great and is dead comfy to wear too! Also shows up some of the painstaking topstitching. I had clearly forgotten just how long this takes. It can’t be rushed. And I couldn’t do it at night-time. Sewing black on black with stupid crap low energy ethical lightbulbs is not good for anyone’s health. So I’m glad I waited for weekend daylight hours to get a neat job.

You can’t see from these photos, and you probably wouldn’t have noticed in real-life and close up either, but I interfaced the cuffs and button band in a white fusible woven interfacing. French stuff. Great quality in fact. But when I cut the button holes it was a little irritating to see the white edges. So I got my Sharpie out and coloured them in… shhhh!

The buttons aren’t an exact match for the blue in the embroidery which bugs a bit but I’m keeping eyes peeled for a closer colour. They can always be replaced at a later date. But I so wish I’d put the buttons on the other side of the cuff. Mr O doesn’t often do his cuffs up so you don’t get to see them side on!

70s shirt shaped hemline

He also doesn’t like to tuck a shirt in much. And so it’s great that the shaped hemline gets a showcase. I used a bias tape to finish the edge because I forgot to lengthen it again I much prefer how it looks.

B5007 in black linen

It was really lovely to catch an hour or so of the sunshine in Barnes, today and especially lovely to spend a little time with this fella. We’ve been like passing ships lately. And he’s off again now to do a gig in Kent! So what’s a girl to do? Crack open a bottle and crank up the sewing machine I guess! Tough life on a Sunday afternoon, hey!

70s western shirt for men

Happy sewing, everyone!