I’ve been curious about those curly rhinestone appliques used to decorate belly dance costumes, often by Russian designers. And lots of dancers have been asking how to make these on Facebook. They are so cute and help you create beautiful, romantic designs.
It took me a while, but I finally figured out how to make them, and in this video, you’ll see my way of making these. I call them grape vine appliques. Let’s get started!
Watch the tutorial video here 🙂
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To make these grape vine appliques, you need:
Stretch fabric – You don’t need a lot of fabric, about 2.5cm x 30cm (1in x 12in) per applique, just make sure it stretches well. I suggest you test with fabric scraps first.
Matching colour thread
Wire – I’m using 20 gauge copper wire, since copper doesn’t rust. I recommend using 20 gauge wire or thicker.
Small safety pin
Sewing tools (See my recommended sewing tools here)
Pliers & wire cutters
Rhinestones & glue to decorate the appliques – I used these inexpensive rhinestones (affiliate) from PandaHall (1440 pieces in a bag for $4.75 USD!)
DIY Grape Vine Appliques – Curly Wire Rhinestone Appliques for dance costumes
First, cut stretch fabric into 2.5cm wide and whatever length you like. Mine is about 25cm or 10in. Make sure you cut the fabric parallel to the direction of stretch.
On the wrong side, fold the ends at about 5mm or 1/4in. This makes the ends cleaner and easier to stitch later. Then fold it in half lengthwise and place pins to hold.
Then sew it with a 5mm or 1/4in seam allowance from the fold. I like to use a narrow zigzag stitch or other stretch stitch for this, so the stitches won’t pop. If you don’t have a sewing machine, you can stitch by hand.
Then put a safety pin at the end of the tube, and turn it inside out.
Take your hand sewing needle and thread, and stitch one of the ends shut. It’s already folded in, so just take a little bit of fabric from the either side of the opening and close it.
Next take wire, and bend at about 1cm or 1/2in from the end with pliers. Make it round, so it won’t scratch or poke out of the tube.
Insert the wire into the tube. As you do this, stretch the tube as tightly as you can without ripping the tube. This prevents the fabric from bunching up when you shape the wire later. Leave about 1cm or 1/2in of wire and cut.
Bend the end of the wire.
Insert the end of the wire inside the tube, and close the end by hand stitching again. And now you have the base of the applique.
You can now shape it however you like. I tend to first make general shape by hand, and for small curls, I use pliers. If the fabric bunches up around small curves, simply slide the fabric to smooth it out.
For this shape, I first folded the wire in half to make this centre loop, then made another smaller loop, and curved the rest. Same for the other side.
Then decorate it. Here I just glued rhinestones (buy them here (affiliate)) with E6000 glue.
To apply to a costume, first place the appliques wherever you like, and use pins to hold them in place. A great thing about these appliques is that you can still adjust the shapes of the wire at this point.
Once you like the whole placement, take your hand sewing needle and thread and stitch around the outlines of the appliques.
That’s it! These grape vine appliques create such a gorgeous effect on a costume, and it can be done fairly quickly. I was able to make all these 7 pieces in a couple of hours, and I love how beautiful they look. It doesn’t show very well on camera, but the rhinestones sparkle so much in person, creating a romantic and luxurious look.
I hope you liked these DIY grape vine rhinestone appliques, and I hope you give it a try!
If you make your own, please share your creations on Sparkly Belly’s Facebook group. I love seeing what everyone makes with my tutorials!
And if you want to see more belly dance costume DIY’s like this, join in my free email course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101. In the free course, you’ll learn to make belly dance costumes from scratch.
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Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!
P.S. Pin the below picture on your DIY board on Pinterest for easy access 😉
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