Photo by Rebecca Uhle
Holiday Craft-Off Winner: Robyn Paton
(continued from the Winter 2005 issue)
Issue #26
Guitar Strap/Guitar Strap Belt
By Venus Zine Staff
Published: December 19th, 2005 | 2:46pm
SUPPLIES
• guitar strap (Levy Poly8 is a good brand, $4.50)
• 1/4–1/2 yard of fabric ($5)
• complementary thread (75–150 yard spool, $2)
• black upholstery thread (the smallest spool you can get, $4)
TOOLS
• iron
• sewing machine
• leather needle for your machine
• rotary cutter
• cutting ruler at least 5 inches wide and 20 inches long
TOTAL COST: $15.50
SKILL LEVEL: Need Some Know-How
INSTRUCTIONS
1. The first thing you’ll need to do is take apart your strap. With a seam ripper, carefully remove the leather end that’s attached directly to the strap, and rip the seams where the strap is folded over the sliding plastic sizer buckle. There will be four pieces — the fabric strap, the plastic adjuster buckle, the leather end that attaches to the strap directly, and the leather end that hangs off the plastic loop. While you’re doing this, also wash, dry, and press your fabric.
2. On a cutting mat, lay out your fabric. Armed with your rotary cutter and cutting ruler, cut a 5-inch by 60-inch strip. If your fabric isn’t 60 inches long, don’t worry; you can cut a number of 5-inch-wide strips and sew them together to make about 60 inches in length.
3. Take your strip, pressing open any existing seams, and fold the strip in half lengthwise making sure the right sides of the fabric are facing each other. Iron it so it lies flat and all of the raw edges are even. The wrong (or back) side of your fabric will be facing out.
4. Now head to your sewing machine. Sew a 1/2-inch seam along the raw edges on only the long edge of the fabric. Essentially, you’ll be making a long tube. Be sure to backstitch over both ends for reinforcement.
5. Turn the tube right side out by attaching a safety pin to one end of the fabric and feeding it through the center of the tube, pulling one end of the tube through the other. Once you’ve got the tube turned right-side out, attach the safety pin to the strap itself and feed it through the tube with the long seam resting in the middle of one of the flat sides of the strap (i.e., not along an edge). The fabric sleeve should cover the strap completely with an inch or two of overhang on either end.
(Optional: At this point, if you want to make sure that your fabric sleeve never slip-slides around, sew a line or zigzag stitch on both edges of the strap, about 1/4 inch away from each edge. This is also the time to add any other embellishment you want.)
6. Fold over the open ends at both ends of the strap 1/2 inch, toward the backside of the strap. Press with your iron to keep them in place. Fold these over again so that the end of the fabric is flush with the end of the strap. Sew across these ends with a straight stitch to secure the fabric.
7. With the seamed (back) side of the strap facing up, feed it through the adjuster buckle on one side and back down the other side of the buckle. If you’re looking at the top of the buckle, the seam should be facing up at the top of the loop. You’ll want to have about 1/2 inch to 1 inch of fabric fed through the buckle. Sew the two sides of the strap together, forming a loop over the center bar of the adjuster buckle.
8. Once you’ve got the end secured around the adjuster buckle, feed the other end through the strap end that has the plastic loop on it. Go through the looped end, and then feed it back through the adjuster buckle, over the top of the existing loop. The seamed sides should now be facing in instead of up, making everything nice and smooth on top.
9. All that’s left is to attach the leather end directly to the fabric. Sandwich the fabric and the leather end together and, using upholstery thread and the leather needle on your sewing machine, sew a 1/4-inch seam around the leather end-piece, making sure to sew the fabric and the end together. This is what will give your strap its stability — loose stitches, or weak thread could be a guitar-dropping disaster. You’re done!
As an added bonus, homemade guitar straps double as great belts! Adjust to the correct sizing and tie a ribbon through the holes on the end tabs to keep it all together.
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