I Crocheted a Vintage Belt!

As you are likely aware, Easter Sunday occurred not long ago. Inspired by Cecilia‘s sewing project for Easter, I thought it would be rather nice to make something new for Easter myself. I didn’t need any new clothes, though, and it would have hurt the cheapskate part of me to spend time and effort and materials on something wholly superfluous.

I then had the happy thought, however, that I could use a new spring belt – the one I have is much too large for me, and though I can make do with it, there’s a large amount of belt-age left hanging when I wear it that usually refuses to stay properly tucked out of the way. And conveniently enough, a family friend had recently shared an absolutely wonderful website with me, freevintagecrochet.com, which has voluminous quantities of vintage crochet patterns.

I chose one of the easiest belt patterns I could find – though I’d love to improve, my crocheting skills are as yet not terribly advanced – and set to work. This is the picture on the pattern:

The pattern calls for using straw of two contrasting colors to make the belt. I instead chose to use crochet thread (not a little influenced by the fact that we did not already own craft straw, and did already own crochet thread) and to only use one color; the dress I planned to wear the belt with was already patterned, so I thought it better to make the belt itself more simple.

If you’re not switching colors, the pattern is ridiculously easy; after the first chain, supposed to be a few inches longer than waist size, you just keep on doing rows of single crochet (with some increasing and decreasing to make that cute point at one end of the belt), then end by working around the entire belt in single crochet for a couple rows.

Somehow, despite the simplicity of the pattern, disaster still struck. I still don’t know what exactly the problem was, but my rows seemed too full after the first row – perhaps my initial chain stitches were just too tight. In addition, the belt insisted on twisting all over itself in a most annoying and unseemly fashion (which I never really resolved, and which I suspect may just be a merry prank that this kind of crochet thread likes to play).

So, when the belt was almost finished, I had to undo the entire thing and try to fix these issues. They seemed to at least partly clear up by using a smaller hook, so I redid the belt using a size C hook. (Which, if you’re not familiar with crochet hook sizes, is also known as Very Very Small.)

I didn’t manage to get very many pictures of the redoing process, since it was Holy Week at this point, and if I wanted to wear this belt to the Easter Vigil, speed had to be prioritized over anything.

(Random fact for you, most of this second round of crocheting was done while we watched The Greatest Story Ever Told (which we still have half an hour or so left to finish…hopefully we’ll do that tonight).

I had never seen it before, and I must say it’s a very mixed bag for me; not all the dialogue is the best and some of their changing/condensing decisions are frankly baffling, but they’re great at capturing somber, meditative aesthetics and I’ve grown to rather like Max von Sydow’s portrayal of Jesus. Perhaps I’ll do a full review of it someday.)

I did get a couple pictures on Holy Saturday morning; I noticed the belt lying on my desk looking reasonably photogenic and decided to take advantage of it.

Finally, after much frantic work, I finished it on Holy Saturday afternoon! Just a couple hours before we were planning on heading out the door to the Easter Vigil.

You can see that even finished, it’s still a little wrinkly and unmanageable – but it lays fine when I’m actually wearing it, and I suppose that’s what matters. I tried ironing it before I finished it, which I think did help somewhat.

Per instructions, I sewed on snaps to fasten the belt. I SHOULD have only needed one pair of snaps, but one aspect of the belt’s misbehavior is that it ended up much longer than it should have and has quite a long ‘tail’ when I’m wearing it (I don’t know how this happened either; it seems a little unbelievable that making my first row of chain stitches too tight would add an extra half foot to the belt’s length, but maybe it did) – so I sewed on an extra pair of snaps to fasten the tail out of sight on the underside of the belt.

I also sewed a pink flower bead onto the end of the belt. Not for any utilitarian purpose, just because I thought it looked cute.

On the whole, I’m quite pleased with it! It’s not perfect by any means, but it serves its purpose perfectly and I think looks rather pretty despite its defects. I’ve also been working on a vintage hat, using a pattern from the same website…but another day for that post.

Have you been working on any sewing/crocheting projects? Do you have any vintage patterns to recommend?