DIY Grape Vine Appliques – curly wire rhinestone appliques for dance costumes

DIY Wire Rhinestone Appliques for Dance Costumes - Grape Vine Applique

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.

Fold the ends of fabric tube

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.

Making fabric tube for grape vine applique

Then put a safety pin at the end of the tube, and turn it inside out.

Turn fabric tube with safety pin

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.

Sew the end of fabric tube

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.

Bend wire end

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.

How to make curly wire rhinestone appliques

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.

Shape wire applique

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.

DIY grape vine applique - wire rhinestone appliques for dance costumes

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.

Dance costume appliques DIY

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.

How to make wire rhinestone appliques for dance costumes

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.

And to get notified when more DIY’s like this come out, sign up for the Sparkly Belly newsletter. 🙂

Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling!

P.S. Pin the below picture on your DIY board on Pinterest for easy access 😉

DIY Wire Rhinestone Appliques for Dance Costumes - Grape Vine Applique

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