Thread: Band and straps - I need your help ladies

I bought the vintage style black/peacock bedlah from Ezma
http://www.bhuz.com/forum/bellydance...veil-sold.html and now I need your help ladies.

The bra band fits but I cannot breathe ..l;,. What's the best/easiest way to make the band longer? add to existing band or remake? please say add ,r:;

also the neck straps are way too short. currently it's 1 piece sewn into the cups. What would be the easiest way to make these longer?

the belt luckily just fits, but if I put on weight/inches it won't, so if anyone has suggestions on how to make the belt a tad longer that would be great. As it is, I can wear it, I'd be more comfortable with an added inch but I can wear it.

Thanks.

Find Anala and ask her she does wonderful bedlah surgery!!!

Check under the lining and see how much strap is attached to the bra. Hopefully there is plenty, it wasn't beaded through and all you have to do is move some out!

{{{HUGS}}}

I posted my thoughts in the What are you working on thread...

Originally Posted by tahiradancer

Check under the lining and see how much strap is attached to the bra. Hopefully there is plenty, it wasn't beaded through and all you have to do is move some out!

{{{HUGS}}}

This might work for the neck strap, seems to me that there was additional strap under the lining. If I recall the lining could be taken up relatively easily.

Extending the belt might be a little trickier.

But glad to know this costume found a good home, it's really beautiful.

Ditto what the others say about the straps.

As for the belt, you could create a round or flower-shaped medallion (to match the flower shapes in the lace), several inches wide, to add to the opening of the belt as an extender. Maybe embellish with sequins similar to the ones already there. You could pull a few strands of fringe from the necklace to fill in the gap in the fringe. And even if adding a few inches to one side of the belt creates a slight asymmetry, having the medallion on just one side will make it appear as if this was intended.

If you're like me and your weight tends to fluctuate up and down, you could make the medallion temporary by just pinning it on either end of the belt (with reliable pins, of course!). Then you could remove it when you don't need the extra room.

Add to the existing chest band. It looks pretty easy to do. If you cant get it to match exactly, cannibalize the necklace to bead over the mismatch area. The belt will be harder to do. I have added on another 2-3 inches and re-beaded. You will need to find a close match in sequins and seed beads and then strip off the first 3 rows of sequins, sew on the addition to the naked area, cover it in base fabric, mix up the striped sequins with an equal amount of new ones, re bead the addition beginning with the mixed bunch of sequins and end with the new. Then deal with the fringe gap by harvesting a few stands from the denser areas.