Well, Poop

[shanmonster]

The good news is I finished my belt, and it's gorgeous. The bad news is it's a bit too big for me. With all the hand-sewing I'd have to do to make it fit me, I suspect it would be much easier (and almost quicker) to instead gorge myself on chocolates in an attempt to match my hips to its girth. Damn. I could always pin it into place. It has a nice fleece and thick blanket lining which would make this easy to do, but that seems just wrong. Maybe I could sell it, but who would be rich enough to pay what it's worth? I figure that with all the work and materials, it's easily worth $380 US. I see tribal belts selling online for $275 US which have no set stones, leather, handmade fabric, or sterling silver.

For those of you who have asked, f00 will take pictures as soon as possible. I want to document this baby, right down to all the nitty gritty details.

Comments

[zaki.livejournal.com]

Damn! All that work and it's too big?

Can you cheat and sew elastic onto the inside along the top? It's a trick I learned with those horrid stiff straight Egyptian belts- the kind that are all one straight unfitted strip, so you can't chop it and realign it. You can simulate a casing with crisscrossed thread and drop down the length almost 2 inches that way, even with an inflexible buckram-based belt. I haven't seen your belt so I don't know if it would work, but a little swag fringe along the top might disguise any slight bunching that would result from elastic. If you distribute the elastic casing threads evenly enough, you shouldn't see the bunching. (And it grows with you, if you fluctuate in weight a little, like me...)

And you never know what someone will pay for a really cool and unique belt, either! Especially if you advertise in the SCA/Pennsic arena. Tribal is HUGE in the SCA at the moment. And vendors can charge huge amounts for a really excellent belt made with exclusively "authentic" materials ($300-900 range) and people buy them...

I really want to see pics of this, now! :) Get to it, f00!

[shanmonster.livejournal.com]

No, elastic would not do the trick with this belt. It's essentially two belts laced together, and can actually be worn as two belts. I know how to fix it, to make it fit me. It's simple, but time-consumning. I just have to pick my stitching out of the top edge, turn it all insideout, and then restitch the ends further in before sewing it all back up again. If I could use a sewing machine, this wouldn't be that big a deal. But since I'm working with leather and my machine hates leather, it means a whole lot of hand-sewing, and a whole lot of tender fingers from pulling a leather needle.

It's good to know there are people out there willing to shell out fair money for handmade belts. Maybe I'll find some of these folks in my travels. I doubt I will in this part of the country, though. Around here, $45 is a lot of money for anything.