Costume Tutorial: Eyepatch/Monocle Combo

To begin with, sorry for my recent lack of posts; I've been feeling a bit lazy ill this past week.But anyway, as Halloween approached, I couldn't decide if I wanted a monocle or an eyepatch. So I decided to make both at once! I wore this to a recent Halloween party, and got lots of attention for it...But that might have been because I was the only one to show up in costume...

1. Cut an oblong piece of fabric large enough to cover the area around your eye. I used faux leather scavenged from an ugly purse I found at Goodwill.

2. Find a round piece of slumped glass about an inch in diameter. Cut a hole in the leather that's just a little bit smaller than the glass piece.

3. Cut two more pieces of leather, each about an inch wide and long enough to go about halfway around your head.

4. Punch holes along the outer edge of the leather oval and down the center of the straps, each about a half-inch apart.

5. Take a long hemp cord and whipstitch through the punched holes around the edges of the leather. Use the cord to stitch the straps to the main part of the patch.

6. Glue a piece of fabric over the back to the patch to prevent the stitching and the ends of the straps from poking your eye. The fabric should be just slightly smaller than the main part of the patch, also with the hole in the middle.

7. Attach the glass piece over the hole. There are two ways of doing this. If the glass is wire wrapped, as mine was, you can run several pieces of thread between the wire and the hemp stitching to sew it into place. If not, a bit of hot glue will do.

8. Add a fastener to the backs of the straps. I used an elastic piece from an old laptop charger, but, lacking any of those, you could also sew on buckles, hooks, or even magnets.

9. And it's done! By the way, if you can think of any clever names for this, could you leave a comment letting me know? I can't think of any. Whoever comes up with the best one gets an imaginary cookie. :)