Hardware embellishments
This group of embellishment ideas is all about adding metal to your sewing projects. You see hardware added to a lot of ready to wear garments, and you can add those elements too!
52. Zippers: zippers can be a great decorative embellishment! Buy the nicest zippers you can find and use them for function or just for looks. Have you ever seen those flowers made just from zipper tape?
53. Lacing: lace-up elements with small grommets and the like can be another hardware element that adds some function.
54. Buckles: I have a weird source for great buckles–old purses! Sometimes you can find really high quality buckles on purses that have lived their handbaggy lives. Cool buckles + a coat =a piece of fantastic.
55. Toggles: like buckles, but just for coats. If you find the toggle buttons with leather, they can be a really beautiful addition to a coat or jacket.
56. Frogs: Another decorative closure. You can make them yourself from bias tubes, but it’s much easier to buy them.
57. Grommets: They’re not just for curtains. Grommets can add a little bit of nautical touch to a jacket or just be a decorative touch in place of buttons.
58. Rivets: jeans would not be jeans without rivets! Usually they’re functional, but sometimes you’ll come across designers that will go so far as to put rivets all down the side seams. That’s definitely something worth trying!
59. Fabric loops: fabric loops can be another decorative closure. I loved how these ones turned out on this refashioned sweater.
Elizabeth Farr is the writer behind the Elizabeth Made This blog where she shares helpful sewing tips, step by step sewing tutorials and videos to help you explore your creativity through sewing. She has written sewing Eguides and patterns, been a featured teacher at Rebecca Page’s Sewing Summit and Jennifer Maker’s Holiday Maker Fest and her work has appeared in Seamwork and Altered Couture magazines. She also created a line of refashioned garments for SEWN Denver. When her sewing machine isn’t humming, she’s playing and teaching violin, and hanging around a good strategic board game with her husband and 4 kids.
What a wonderful list!
Thanks Carrie! There’s always so many things to try out that can make an impact!
I love to go into a junk store or thrift store and just look! There are always little this and thats, you can use your imagination and just find all kinds of goodies to embellish your clothes, purses, shoes, etc. Thanks for sharing your wonderful ideas and creativity!
Elizabeth, your makes are amazing. Thank you for the embellishment information and ideas.
Thanks Dee! All those little touches really start to make a garment its own!
Not only is the book good, Indygo Junction has several others. But, since I REFUSE to pay the full amount, I go to my favorite site, thriftbooks.com, see if they have the book in stick and pay the (much) lower price! I found the book you had suggested on the site for less than 6 bucks! And when you spend 10.00 or more :FREE SHIPPING!!!!
Nice!