DIY Fabric Belts : 5 Easy ways to make your own belt

Any plain dress, skirt, or pants can have an instant transformation worth a “wow” with a beautiful belt. If you have had enough of the unimaginative leather belts, you can go into the DIY territory and design yourself a beautiful eye-catching belt with fabric scraps you have around. You can make a beautiful belt with the fabric you already have in your stash and transform the most ordinary dress.

You can make belts that complement your dress or even match it with the other accessories you are wearing. Choose a novelty fabric for eye catching effect.

When you cut fabric for belts, always cut fabric on the lengthwise grain i.e., parallel to the selvage. Lengthwise grain does not stretch as much as the crosswise grain or the bias grain. You do not want a belt that stretches out of proportion or twists. Also, ensure that the grainline of the fabric is maintained when cutting to prevent twisting later.

You can checkout this post on the ways to correct the grain of the fabric. What I do is to draw out a thread in the cross wise direction and cut through the space and then align the fabric by the selvedges to get the lengthwise grain correct.

Measure around the area where you will be wearing the belt. For normal snap fastened belts, cut out fabric piece of length equals this measure plus 5 inches extra (for seam allowance and overlap). For other types of belts, cut fabric extra 10 inches to 20 inches for overlap, tying, etc.

1. Double ring belt (Make a D ring belt)

To make a D-ring fabric belt, you need 2 D rings or 2 Oval rings of the same size and a fabric piece with the length equalling Waist round + 10 to 15 inch extra.

There are 2 ways of sewing the fabric tape that makes your belt – without any visible top stitching or with a top stitching. I will explain the ‘without-top-stitching’ method here.

To make a 1 1/2 inch fabric belt, Cut out 2 fabric pieces of length equalling {waist round plus 10 inches} and width equalling 2 inches. The width depends on the ring you have – it has to fit inside the ring comfortably. Cut out 1 1/2 inch wide interfacing as well of the same length.

Attach the interfacing to one of the fabric pieces.

Keep these 2 fabrics rightsides to the inside. Fasten a small safety pin inside near the short edge which is sewn shut – this is for turning this fabric rightside out later.

Sew along the two long edges with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Sew one of the short edges shut as well – leave the other short edge unstitched and open. Trim the seam allowance close to the seam line and do not forget to trim at the corners as shown in the picture above.

Press the seam allowance open with a hot iron so that the seam looks nice from the outside. This is very important.

Turn this tube right side out using the pin you have kept inside.

Fold the un-sewn short edge to the inside and sew it shut from the top – you can also hand sew with small ladder stitch so that the sewing is invisible.

Now insert 2 D-Rings onto one of the ends of the strip.

Fold that edge once to the inside and stitch in place – Make sure that you stitch very close to the D-rings. You can use a zipper foot for that.

To wear the belt insert the free edge of your belt through the 2 D rings.

Now bring the end through the second D-ring (the one farther away from the edge)

Pull it through. This is your belt.

You can make ribbon D-ring belts or webbing D-ring belts by buying a thick ribbon like a velvet ribbon or ready made plastic webbings available in shops – this is one of the easiest way to make a belt. These are ready made and you do not have much to sew to convert them into belts. Just add 2 D rings and you have easy peasy belts.

You will have to cut the ribbon or webbing to the length of waist round plus 10 inches extra. If the other side of the ribbon has an ugly look ensure that you leave some 5 inches extra and stitch this extra to the inside on the other side where the D rings are not attached – this ensures that the ugly side is not exposed when the belt is fastened

You can make a similar fabric belt and attach buckles on one end and make some eyelets on one end to make a regular buckle belt. Check out this post on attaching metal grommets on fabrics and other material.

2. Simple tied belt /sash belt

Cut fabric and make a sash belt and tie it in a knot or bow at the front of the waist.

To make a sash belt you will have to cut the fabric piece for the belt of length measuring the waist round plus 20 inches.

Check out this posts on tying a sash bow & different ways to make sashes.

3. Make a Buckled Fabric Belt

Make a fabric belt with a fabric piece of length equalling Waist round minus the buckle length plus seam allowance and 1/2 inch ease.

Attach buckles to the edges – You can attach the kind of plastic buckles that you attach to bags. There are many types of buckles that you can use to make fabric belts.

Remember to leave enough seam allowance to insert through the buckles.

4. Rope /cord belt

Cut out a cord or rope in length equalling waist round Plus 20 inches . It can be tied in the front. You can also use leather strips the same way.

5. Braided Fabric tube belt

You can braid several strands of yarns to create a rope. This is then used as a rope belt. The rope belt can simply be left as it is and tied at the front for a very easy belt. The end can be left as fringes after knotting some inches inside from the ends

For making a braided belt, measure your waist round. Multiply this by 2.5. This is how much you should take for making the braid.
Cut out the cord or false leather or ribbon 1/2 inch wide

Make a stitch to keep them together. You can first tie a knot at the end and then make a stitch across to keep the strands together before braiding.

Start braiding as you would braid your hair.

You can use tshirt yarn for this. Check out this tutorial on making t-shirt yarn.

Make more complicated braided belts with more number of yarn.

5. Elastic belt

This is a belt made of fabric with elastic inserted inside. You can either make a straight front panel and make the elastic panel only on the back or fully elasticize the belt.

To make a fully elasticized belt, cut the fabric piece 9 inches more than your waist round measurement. Make a fabric tube out of this fabric by folding it by the middle. Sew along the long edge. Turn the tube rightside out. Attach the snaps. Insert elastic measuring 3 inches less than the waist round. Sew shut the short edges.

To make the belt with the front flat, cut out two fabric pieces that measure half of your waist plus seam allowance. You also need elastic measuring half of your waist minus 3 inches .

Keep the elastic sandwiched between the two front panel fabric kept right sides to the inside; pin in place and then sew along the edge.

Leave 2 inch unstitched to turn the belt rightside out

Turn the belt rightside out through this hole. Edge stitch the whole thing while getting the unstitched portion shut.