How To - Vintage Fabric Covered Belts

This is how I make my fabric covered belts to coordinate with my vintage dresses!

The first step is to cut some heavy-weight interfacing 7/8” wide and the length of the interfacing (22”) times two. The finished belt is around 44”. I cut one end of the belt into a point. The interfacing is the ironed onto a 3” cut of fabric with some extra at the end to wrap around the buckle.

I wrap the fabric around the interfacing and secure it with whip stitches.

I then cover my buckle. I trace my bucket onto my fabric and leave 1/4” on all side to wrap around the buckle. The vertical strip of 1” fabric you see will be wrapped around the tong, which will be made later. I cover the fabric and buckle with spray adhesive and put them together. I make sure to clip my corners before I spray so everything wraps around smoothly.

This is how the buckle looks once those steps are completed.

I then use the extra fabric I left at the end of the belt in the first step and use that to wrap around the interior vertical bar of the buckle. This is secured with whip stitches.

I then make a belt loop from a 1 1/2” wide 3” long strip of fabric. It is stitched together using whip stitches.

I then wrap it around the belt and secure the two ends together. I do not fix it to a point of the belt so it can move around freely to anywhere I need it to be.

I then cut a length of 18 gauge aluminum wire for the tong and push a hole in the center of the belt using an awl.

I then insert the tong into the belt and see how much of it needs to be covered. I use tiny back stitches to secure the fabric cover to the tong. I then cut away the excess and use fray check on the cut edge.

Here is how the finished buckle looks. I make sure not to punch the hole to big so the tong slides out, if that becomes an issue I use a big of glue around the area to further secure the two points.

I then four holes in my belt using my 00 size punch. These holes correspond to my waist measurement +/- 1”.

I then stitch around the holes with a matching embroidery floss and the belt is complete!