I’ve always wanted a set of suspenders but I had no clue whether I would wear them. So, rather than waste money I decided to see if I could make some out of stuff I already had then I could test them out with my wardrobe.
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What you need:
First off apologies, some of the photos are pretty blurry because I tried to use James’ new camera without having any clue about the settings. Fail on my part! You can still pretty much see what’s going on though ^_^ The first thing to do is cut the ribbon into 3 pieces, 2 long and 3 shorter. The long ones should be enough to go from your waist, over your shoulders to the middle of your back and the short one goes from the middle of your back to your waist again.
Melt the ends with a lighter to prevent fraying, be very careful not to burn yourself. Depending on the kind of ribbon you have it might not be necessary.
Stitch the ribbons into the Y shape. The long ribbons at the top and the short one at the bottom.
Cover the stitching with something cute… like bunnies 😉
Fold the end of the short ribbon under and stitch it in place. You might want to fold it twice to seal the edge.
Taadaa…
These are the clips I’m using, they were 6 for $1.50 at a junk store and have a strong spring in them, you could also use bulldog clips or even pegs for a cute rustic look^_^
Sew the folded end onto the clip. If you want you could cover it with another bunny but I thought it looked ok like this.
From the back:
Now the other sides are a bit trickier, they involve making kind of a belt system out of paper clips! Start by folding the edge of the ribbon up and stitching that in place.
Slide a paper clip on like this:
Fold the end of the ribbon up and slip the sewn loop at the end on to the bottom arm of the paper clip to hold it in place. Sure this probably won’t last through *heavy* wear but it worked for me all day.
Now we need a way to attach it to the clip without sewing it so it can’t adjust. So add another paper clip to the bottom loop like this:
And stitch the paperclip to the back part of the clip.
Repeat on the other side and you’ve got yourself some make shift suspenders 😀
I think I might deco the metal ends of these 😀
You would be surprised how well the paperclips work at holding it up, I think it’s probably a combination of the fact that I used thick ribbon and the fact that it’s made of cotton not slippery satin.
Now let’s see if I actually wear them much 😀
I’m totally one step away from getting some 80’s style piano key ones mwahahaha!
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