DIY A Christmas Party Dress On The Cheap

The first thing to know and even to practise, is how to fasten the eyelets. Always follow the instruction on the pack you buy, the following are for our eyelets from Hobbycraft.

To first punch the hole, take Tool A out of the tool holder, place under the fabric where you want the hole to be, and place the holder with tool B in it directly on top, and tap a few times with a hammer. We put a heavy book and some corkboard placemats under our dress for a hard surface to hammer on (don’t ruin your table/desk!)

When you remove the tool a neat hole should have been punched, if not, place it back in the same spot and hammer a lil harder!

To fasten the eyelet (the instructions sound very complicated, as probably this description will seem, but it’s easy, and once you’ve done it once you’re literally just repeating that for the whole dress.)

We even made sure we got this right by practising on a scrap piece of fabric first. Join us in this if you are also easily confused by instructions!

Choose where you’d like to position your eyelets, depending on the dress you’d like to update, lay a few out around the dress and see what you like best, before you fix them.

We placed 8 eyelets from the underarm hem to the strap, 12 inch from the edge of the hem, 1 inch apart. We created a hole with our tool, then fastened the eyelet.

We did this on both sides of the dress, and then, with the holes in as identical a position as possible, on the back underarm that will later let us add our leather straps.

It is easier to estimate the length of the tie you will need for the shoulder when the dress is on, as everyone’s measurements are different.

Once you know how long your strap needs to be, cut that length from your 4 metres. Add a few cms to your length for the knots you’ll need to create at the end.

To create a knot, double the leather up and tie, this will leave a U shaped section at the top, cut that in half so it’s open, and tie again for extra strength.

Thread your strap through from the inside of the dress, into the first eyelet, with the knot at the end, and the knot will stop it going through the eyelet any further.

Pop the remaining strap over the shoulder, into the inside of the dress, and knot again using the same method, to keep the strap in place.

We added a strap to three of our eyelets using this method. We placed the first strap on the 5th eyelet up from the underarm, and the next two on the two eyelets above that.

Repeat this on the other shoulder.

You could stop there, but we decided to add to the leather ties on the shoulders with a cut out section at the bottom of the dress.

Lay your dress flat on a surface, measure 10 inches up from the hem, make a mark (ideally with tailors chalk, but we made a tiny dot with a biro) at equal points along, on both the front and back of the dress.

Because our dress’ fabric was neoprene and doesn’t fray easily, it was fine to cut along the line we’d just created with fabric scissors and leave raw without a hem. If your dress is a fabric that is more likely to fray, make a 12-inch hem by folding the fabric over, ironing, then sewing down with a straight stitch all the way around the dress. This will ensure the seam doesn’t fray and come away.

Keep the section you have just cut off, you will need it in a moment.

Position 6 eyelets, 2 inches apart, as close to the bottom of the dress as possible. Create a hole and fasten each one.

Again, as directly behind the eyelet you’ve just created as possible, create a hole and fasten another eyelet on the back of the dress so you have 6 holes in the same position on the front and back.

Repeat the above on the small section of dress you have just cut out, placing the eyelets at the top of the hem, on the front and back, lining them with the ones on the bottom of your dress.

Once all your eyelets are in place, you can begin lacing them together with the leather cord.

Lay the dress down, with the cut out section about 5 inches below the dress.

Start at the first eyelet on the left hand side, at the bottom cut out section and thread the leather cord through, starting from the inside and coming out through the hole.

Lace to the next eyelet diagonal to this, then from there, missing one eyelet out, diagonal from there, to create and in-out threading that will eventually make the criss cross pattern.

Go all the way around the dress, front and back, and once you come around to the first eyelet again, thread the other holes instead, to create the ‘X’ pattern.

On your last eyelet hole, create a knot as you did earlier, to keep the cord in place.