Mandalorian Armor Project 8: Girth Belt

I didn't originally plan on making a girth belt. When I first designed the costume, I planned on including an ammunition belt around my waist. The waist belt looked perfect but was just a tad too big. Because both Jango and Boba Fett wore girth belts, I decided to craft my own.

I started off with a roll of white nylon rope and began cutting it down to size. I cut my first two lengths of rope at 34", but then cut the rest at 38", figuring that I would probably need the extra length. I used 1" gaffers tape and put a ring around the end of each length. Afterwards I used the heat gun to melt the strands on each end.

Dying this rope required a bit of trial and error, but ultimately the result was very satisfying. I cut apart one my shorter lengths and used the pieces for testing. I used RIT's "Dark Brown" dye. In order to dye nylon, they suggest mixing the powered dye with very hot water and mixing in a cup of vinegar. It is an excellent idea to lay down a drop cloth, or place the dyeing bowl inside a sink. Dyeing fabric is MESSY process and the dye will get everywhere.

After dying the first few lengths, I found my rhythm. I would completely submerge two lengths for nine minutes. Afterwards I'd pull them out and then rinse them with warm water. As the water started cooling, the dye became less effective and I had to leave each piece in for longer and longer. Ultimately, I ended up mixing a second batch of dye, and redying the final few pieces.

This was my final pattern for the girth belt. I planned to have extra material to overlap the belt's buckles. Did you know that nylon rope shrinks as it dries? Because I sure didn't! 

Each rope shrank about four inches, which barely left me enough material to go around my waist. Some other costumers spray paint their ropes to keep the nylon from shrinking afterwards. If I were to remake this girth belt, I'd probably spray paint the nylon and avoid the headache of the dying process.

A quick trip to Joann's Fabric brought me 1 yard of duckcloth. I traced my pattern onto the material and began cutting out my belt. A word to the wise: Don't use Sharpie markers to trace your pattern. It bleeds through to the opposite side of the cloth, leaving you ugly traced lines on one side, and obvious trace marks on the front.

Once I cut out my duckcloth, I started sewing the nylon ropes onto the belt. If it isn't blindingly obvious, I had never sewn anything in my life before this. After I had sewn my first rope (the one on the right), I learned the best way to stitch the ropes onto the duck cloth.

Immediately after I attached the remaining ropes onto the belt, I realized I needed to consistently attach them at the end of the belt. Right after this picture was taken, I removed the six ropes on the far right and sewed them to the line. For the ends of the belt, where the duck cloth overlaps the nylon, I folded the last .25" of the duck cloth. This hid the frayed edges of the cloth, and gave me a consistent line for the overlap.

This is what the overlap on each end looked like. These overlaps covered the stitches on each side of the rope. In hindsight, I would probably make these larger in the future. Each overlap could extend another .5". I would also increase the side flaps' length to .75". These extensions would help close gaps, and give me a slightly larger margin of error.

I didn't have access to a sewing machine for this project, so everything here is hand sewn. Sewing everything up to this point took almost 36 hours. Needless to say, my hand was quite unhappy the next few days.

After I sewed the batting in place, I started to seal up the exterior edges. Because I'm sewing an outside edge, I was able to loop the thread around the exterior edges. In hindsight, I should've used a blanket stitch to properly seal this edge. A blanket stitch would hold this edge much better than the whip stitch I used here.

This was my ammo belt placed over top of the girth belt, just to see the color comparison. Overall, I'm very happy with how it looks.

  

Before I start stitching the exterior of the belt, I needed to attach my batting. Batting is used as an extra layer between the front and back of the belt. When making blankets it's used as an insulating layer, but in this case I'm using it to pad the belt. Because nobody is going to see it, I'm using some sports mesh I had left over from an old project. Because the batting would fit inside the belt, I needed to cut it slightly smaller than the belt. I cut the batting a half inch shorter along the top, and a half inch on either side.

Because I don't want the batting to slowly sink to the bottom of the belt, I needed to attach it to the exterior of the belt. Using a pen and my tape measure, I traced a zig-zag pattern along the back of the belt. After tracing out my pattern in pen, I realized that marking my lines in chalk would've been a better idea. So in hindsight, use chalk to trace your lines, not pen.

This section took a long time to sew by hand, but overall, I was very happy with the result. The diamond pattern securely held the batting to the duck cloth, which meant that I wouldn't have to worry about it shifting while I wore it. This is what the batting looked like on the opposite side:

Once I finished sewing up the ends of the belt, the last bit to sew was to the large seam that ran along the top of the belt. I inadvertently left myself very little clearance between the two flaps along the back. If I were to redo this piece, I would definitely leave myself an extra half inch of material to sew into.

My next step was to attach the straps that would hold the belt together. I picked up some 1.75" nylon strapping from the local Army Navy store, and some 2" parachute buckles from Joann's Fabric. The nylon strapping is heavy-duty material and was very difficult to cut. I had to resort to use my aviation snips to cut through it.

I needed to complete hide the parachute buckle, so I inset it behind the outside edge by .5 an inch.

I cut a 10" inch length for the female parachute clip, and a larger 12" length for the male side.

These straps would have all the strain of holding the belt together. To keep this from falling apart, I doubled the stitching between the strapping and the belt. I sewed both ends of the strapping together, and then double stitched the entire piece to the belt.

The belt's other side was done slightly differently. Because I wanted this belt to be adjustable, I only attached the lower strap to the belt. Threading the stitches for these straps through the front's ropes was incredibly tricky.

When the belt was buckled, I ended up with with a 1" gap between the two ends. To hide the strapping beneath, I covered the gap with another strip of duck cloth. The end was attached with strip of sew-on Velcro. In hindsight, I probably wouldn't use nylon strapping to attach the belt. Next time, I'd install grommets along either end of the belt. This way I could lace the belt together. How does the saying go? Hindsight is 20/20...

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