BeatleWear: Belting out the hits

On Saturday I bought a new sewing machine (this one) but there's a delay and it won't arrive for at least a fortnight. Yes, this kills me. But I have decided this is the Universe's way of teaching me patience and maturity. Or something.

But my interest is up, and I've been using my old machine a lot - hey, at least I'll appreciate the new one heaps when it arrives.

I've been spending a lot of time trawling for good DIY projects. I found this one for a floral belt a few weeks ago, and spent a while madly searching for a good second-hand leather item to upcycle. And on Saturday, I hit gold.

Most of the stuff at Salvos (Fyshwick store) was hugely expensive, and I had no luck finding

a skirt. Luckily, I did find a girl's suede jacket!

I made a pattern piece (as per the tutorial) based on my waist measurement (plus about 3 inches). I tried the pattern piece on to get an idea of what it would look like. It took some tweaking, but when it looked right, I cut out a piece from the body of the jacket (I put the wider middle section as evenly across the stitching in the middle back as possible - bonus detail stitching!)

I also cut out a lining piece, using some antique blue satin remnants of one of my grandmother's dresses.

Then I got into the zone and forgot to take ANY progress shots (old readers may sense a theme).

I am still attaching the press-studs - I'm using two, about 1.5 inches apart so there's a nice wide overlap (I'm hoping this will keep it together neater than just one).

Finished belt!