The belt is done! And, actually pretty quickly to be honest. I ended up not having to do my weird new crafting schedule because the nice people at fabric.com managed to ship my stuff out right away and got it to me Friday! Which was just in time for having all the other pieces ready, like the fabric I used for the "webbing" sections which had to be dyed, cut and sewn. That being said, these pictures are posted in the order of how I would normally progress with this belt, but now necessarily how I actually did.
The base belt is the easiest part for me because it's largely just gluing, lots and lots of gluing. And by now I have a lot of experience with gluing pleather around craft foam to simulate leather. It's a pretty simple progression. I do the base panel first, giving about 1" allowance on each side so I have plenty of pleather to glue down. I also make sure to pull it as taut as I can without warping or folding the craft foam itself, you get a feel for it eventually. I also made the back band that holds it together, with a quickly sewn section of the burgundy cordra since it looks like theres either a dark red or brown fabric section on the back. I like the red just for the little extra color it adds.
I make the next layer of the belt the same way, but also add topstitching around the edges once it's done and then glue it to the base layer with barge. I do it this way because trying to sew through BOTH layers with my machine would be a nightmare and barge holds just as well, the stitching is just for aesthetics. I also add some velcro to attach the back panel to the main belt. And last addition is the fabric section that sits on top which is simple to sew aside from the cut out at one end. The bucket wasnt glued on yet and was just placed to space the section properly since they actually end AT the buckle instead of running underneath to reduce bulk.
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And now the REAL workhorse for this part of the project, the pouches. The pouches were a struggle for me last year and I ended up having to fudge it a bit. The end result were pouches that looked good, but weren't functional or super sturdy and this year I wanted them to be both. One thing that made this significantly easier is how well this pleather sews even after its been wrapped around craft foam and glued in place with barge. Seriously, if you ever need good-looking and easy to sew brown pleather, Swavelle/Milll Creek pleather from fabric.com is amazing. Okay shameless plug over. Anyway, the pouches are three main parts, a long panel which makes the body and two side strips. I made the main panels the same way the belt is made, pleather on craft foam, topstitching, custom "webbing" made from fabric. The side panels I patterned by using the AoU belt pattern from TheFoamCave that I bought last year and just adjusted the size for what I needed. I sewed one side of each side panel to the main bodies with my machine to get it started.
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The rest of the stripes were sewn in by hand which took a while (1 hour total per pouch so about 5 hours of hand-sewing). I did it this way because looking at pictures of the belt, It looks like the sides of the panels are attached by just topstitching which would make sense on account of the hole leather thing. There was also a very specific way that the sides rounded out and divoted inwards that I wanted to repliace. I think sewing these in by hand, while time consuming, also achieved the look I was going for. It also resulted in something that was sturdy and functional (even though they're too small for things like my phone and wallet). But hey, I can stick candy and cash and business cards or something in there! The other thing that sewing them inwards like this solved was an issue I ran into with my AoU belt where the sides of the pouches poofed out a LOT. I ended up having to stuff them with craft foam to fill them enough to stretch the sides flat. No such tricks necessary hear.
PS, I called this the workhouse because it required handstitching and I am terrible and slow at handstitching.
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And lastly, just some nice shots of the mostly completed belt with PannausProps' belt buckle attached! This was just affixed with an even coat of epoxy on the back and pressed into place for a few minutes.
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