Gather the Flower Belt Tutorial

I mentioned in my last post that Riley loves accessorizing.  If you read that one, you saw the gathered belt I made to match her Dress Up Day dress. 

It's so quick and easy and so cute.  Here's the how-to!  (See what I did in that pic?  Made an awesome caption with sidewalk chalk.  Boo-yah!)

Mayerials:
fabric
1/2-inch elastic
Sewing stuff

Instructions:
Cut your fabric 5 inches wide from selvage to selvage.

Fold right sides together and sew up the long side.  Turn right side out.  When you press, put the seam in the center of one side (more or less) and fold the ends in, so no more raw edges are exposed.

Stitch down one side, 5/8-inch from the edge.

Do the same down the other edge.

Cut your elastic to your desired waist size and start threading it through the center hole.

When the elastic gets to the edge, stop pulling and stitch it in place.  Then continue pulling it  through. 

When you get it out the other end, stitch in place there, too.   You'll have a piece like this.

Overlap the ends, about 1/2-inh.

Sew 2 lines down, securing edges together.  Belt part DONE!

For the flower, make a circle, using a 4" radius.

(You'll do this by folding fabric both horizontally and vertically then measuring out from the corner 4" till you can cut a decent quarter of a circle.)

Open it up...

With a needle and thread, gather along the edge all the way around.

Pull it together.

Smush!  Make sure your hole is centered then grab a button.  Make sure you use your thread to pull in all those raw edges under the button.

Stitch to your belt over your seam.  Try to grab just the bottom layer of the flower fabric, so you don't see your stitches.

Thar she is!

In case you're curious about Riley's dress, here's the back.  I didn't mean it to be so flowergirl (or maybe christening?)-y, but oh well.  It makes for a good accessorizing canvas. :)