I’m going to be writing a lot more so I don’t feel a bit of guilt about spending some quality time sewing.
Some of you will remember that I wrote a while back that while I had made corsets, I hadn’t actually made a nice vest yet. I kept MEANING to, and then I didn’t (mainly because I felt really daunted around some of the construction).
I feel less daunted. This weekend, I decided I was getting my waistcoat.
My original inspiration behind the whole “I want to learn to sew late Victorian shit” was this outfit.
But it’s not the only style of vest I like. I wanted something that would button up high, but not have me dealing with a collar my first time with a weird construction.
I pulled out the pattern I made using directions from the Keystone Jacket and Dress Cutter. For the measurements, I used my regular measurements: when I wear a corset I rarely lace down so much that it alters any of those values (I basically cinch in enough to support my aching back, stabilize my lower back and not allow errant twists, and to make up for the thickenss of the corset itself).
Victorian bodice blocks are a bit different than what we use in modern times, so I ended up with something that looked like this:
I made a toile and was honestly pretty satisfied, but I was unsure if some of the issues around the neck was due to the pattern or due to me not knowing how to properly construct a lined vest (it’s really a doofy order of operations). As Darren once said - if there’s something he’s learned from me, if you want to make something really well, get ready to make it twice.
I did learn two main things from the toile: I needed to read carefully how to construct the thing, and I needed to lengthen it by about an inch, an inch and a half. Which meant I’d have to add back in the hip spring. I figured that’d be easy enough, because as long as I didn’t reach past the bottom of my corset, I wouldn’t have to go past the edge of my pattern pieces to capture that difference between my hips and waist.
I’ve been trying to focus on using the supplies, notions, and cloth that I have on hand, and once again it did not fail me. I grabbed that lovely purple velvet I got in a thrift store and some buttons I’ve carried with me since Los Angeles, and then I got to work.
The bodice has a total of 8 darts, but since I made the outer and a lining, it meant I had to sew 16 diamond-shaped darts and line those up when reassembling. I did a closed shoulder assembly. First I sewed the shoulders to the back (leaving the side seams open). Then I sewed from the bottom front up and around the neck and down the other side to the other bottom front. Once complete, I sewed the armholes, and then flipped it right-side out through the shoulders. Here’s a mistake I made - instead of just sewing right sides together and being done with it, I sanwiched them together and did it in one seam - so I basicallyy folded over the bottom edge to hand seam the thing shut, since I couldn’t flip it inside out to get the bottom seam.
And even though I made that mistake and it was the first time really using my buttonholer, this outfit is the result.
The buttonholer wasn’t a huge fan of how thick the velvet and the lining was and if I had it all to do over again, I’d even add in interfacing to help the buttonholes retain their shape a bit better. I’ll definitely make a few more vests of different styles (I’d love a shawl collar vest with a welted pocket, and I have some cloth in my stash I’ll use that for) - but more importantly I can use that waist pattern as the foundation for another outfit I’d love to make - a circus performer’s bodice.
How else am I going to live out my “Victorian trailer trash” aesthetic dreams?
Awesome!!!! Happy Happy 2023 Jamie