How to use Dritz eyelet pliers to insert eyelets into any garment

I use eyelets all the time while sewing or refashioning clothes. They have so many applications and can give a garment a finished and professional look. You can use them as openings for a drawstring tube, you can use them for a lace-up detail on a garment, or even just as a purely decorative element! And it’s so easy to insert eyelets into any fabric or garment!

There’s two options for inserting eyelets into fabric: 1) you can get an anvil and post eyelet set and use a hammer to set the eyelets or 2) you can use eyelet pliers. The manual (anvil and post) eyelet tool set is usually a bit cheaper (available HERE), but honestly I prefer the eyelet pliers. They just make things so much easier. There’s no getting out the hammer and setting up on a sturdy surface to hammer-set your eyelets. You can set your eyelets with a simple squeeze of the pliers. So today I’m going to show you how I use eyelet pliers to insert eyelets!

Dritz eyelet pliers, which is the type I use; are available HERE.

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What you need:

• eyelet pliers
• eyelets
• fabric chalk or marker
• scissors
• fabric or garment you want to insert eyelets into

Steps:

1. Mark on your fabric where you want the eyelets placed
2. Get your eyelet pliers ready
3. Make a small hole in one of your marks
4. Place the eyelet front into the hole
5. Place the eyelet back over the front
6. Press the eyelet with the pliers until you feel a “click”

Instructions:

Step 1

To get started with adding eyelets you your garment, first mark where you will insert the eyelets. I often like to place the eyelets on the fabric to visually decide how I would like them to be placed. Then I mark the center of each eyelet with a dot or X with a fabric marker or chalk.

In this project I was inserting eyelets for a decorative lace-up detail. So I lined up my eyelets in the placement I liked, then marked in the centers with small dots.

Step 2

Next, lets grab the tools we need from the eyelet plier kit. I was using the “large” sized (1/4 inch) eyelets, so these are the pieces I grabbed:

The kit also comes with the supplies to insert “small” (5/32 inch) eyelets, so if you’re using small eyelets you’ll need these pieces instead:

Now that you have the supplies ready, you can place the larger plastic piece into one side of the pliers and the metal piece into the other side. It doesn’t matter which one goes in which side, either way will work. They should fit snuggly but be easy to push into place.

Step 3

Now we’re ready to actually insert our first eyelet! To start, make a very small hole right on one of your marks in the fabric. The eyelet plier kit does come with a hole punch tool to make the hole with the pliers, but I prefer to use scissors because it gives me more control over the size of the hole. I also find it easier, especially in thicker fabrics.

So, my recommendation here is to start with as small a hole as possible. You can always make it larger later if you need to. I find that a smaller hole results in a tighter and more secure eyelet fit.  Here is the small hole I made in one of my marks:

Step 4

Next, choose an eyelet front from your eyelet pack. The front is the one with the thicker edges. The left one in the photos below.

Now press the eyelet front into the hole you made from the outside of the garment. Stretch the fabric around the eyelet to fit. If you can’t fit the eyelet in the hole you made, you can cut the hole to be slightly larger and try again. Just try to be careful not to cut the hole too large or the eyelet will be loose and funky looking.

Step 5

Now, place an eyelet back over the back of the eyelet front piece from the inside of the garment. Hold this in place with one hand.

Step 6

With your other hand, grab your eyelet pliers and place the metal side against the eyelet back on the inside of the garment. The larger plastic side should be on the outside of the garment. Squeeze the pliers until you feel the eyelet “click” into place.

Now you’ll have a beautifully inserted eyelet! It should look something like this:

Now you can just repeat this process to insert all the eyelets you want!

Once you’re done inserting your eyelets and want to remove the tool pieces from the eyelet pliers, you’ll probably notice that it’s practically impossible to pull out the pieces by hand. That’s what the little plastic grey piece at the top (comes in the eyelet plier kit) is for!

So to remove the green plastic piece, hook the end of the grey plastic piece over the inner edge of the pliers, from the outside. This is hard to explain, but the photo below should help you out!

Then, just press on that flat part that sticks out past the end of the pliers, and the green piece should pop out enough that you can pull it out. You can see it has popped out in the photo below.

To remove the metal piece from the other side of the pliers, just repeat this same process to pop out the metal piece enough to pull it out.

And that’s it! I hope this helped you get the confidence to use eyelets in your next project!

If you want to try out your eyelet-inserting skills, here are a few of my clothing DIY tutorials that include eyelets:

• T-shirt upcycle to crop top with lace-up detail
• Cropped hoodie with drawstring waist

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