More of a fix than a refashion

I got this great fall dress at a thrift store. The label said it was machine-washable and dryer-safe, but...

on the first wash and dry, my dryer ate the fake leather buckle!

Everything else about the dress was great, so I set about to replace the buckle. I cut the fake leather one off and used it as a template to cut new shapes out of actual brown leather. I cut two layers for each side of the buckle.

Using a leather needle and some heavy duty thread on my sewing machine, I sewed the top layer to the bottom layer for each side of the buckle. I stopped just short of sewing all the way around, though. I cut the leather of each layer of the buckle near the hole where it attaches to the fabric. I staggered the cuts, so that a small flap of leather overlapped on the 2 layers. Then I glued a snap on those flaps, like so.

The flaps and snaps will allow me to take the buckle off for washing, so I can wash the dress with no fear of ruining the buckle. I used the existing hardware to finish the buckle. Here's how it turned out.

Then I threaded each side of the buckle through the fabric loops on the dress, snapped the ends together, and buckled it up. Here's the close-up of my new buckle.

And here's the dress! I love being able to use my sewing skills to rescue things that would otherwise be ruined! Thanks for reading.  -Amy