New C-Belt

I've been pondering upgrading my armor for a while now and have a list of stuff I'd like to do. I've recently moved, which gave me the chance to inventory my collection of random craft stuff. This week I found enough leather bits to start putting some stuff together, so I decided to begin with a new c-belt. I've been working on design and planning with my randomly shaped scraps here and there most of the week. Here are the bits all nice and cut out. The black leather is a lighter weight leather and the brown is a bit heavier weight. I had to oil the black leather since it had been in various garages for quite some time. I have an old school metal sewing machine, so I can drop it down to a very low speed and sew leather. I've got some nice leather needles which look like tiny daggers. At first the sewing was a bit rough, but I rubbed some of the leather oil on the needle and then things went quite nicely. Appliqueing leather is fairly different than the work I've done with fabric and it was challenging. I managed to make it through without any catastrophes. No do overs with leather! Finally, I riveted in the buckles and finished them out. It's starting to look pretty nice. The screw rivets probably wouldn't have been my first choice for the project, but my theme for a while is going to be using stuff I already have and I had a handful of these left over. I am going to keep rummaging through things to see if I find some rivets I like better. Next on my agenda will be adding the leg harness mounts over the hips. I'm going to continue to strategically use the brown leather to reinforce the black leather and hope that it is strong enough. I used some older measurements and I think that I'm going to have to take in the front a little. I'm going to let it sit overnight and think a bit on what to do next.