#catcf 2005

Ingredients

Simplicity Pattern 4083

Black wool skirt, marked “craft wool” at the thrift store

Black lining fabric

Lots of buttons. Too many buttons.

1…. Slide buckle? I think that’s what it’s called.

1 vest from a suit set for reference

The Process

Using the same sort of process as when you modified the coat pattern, adjust the vest pattern to fit your measurements. Then, decide the existing vest pattern is not complex enough and instead cut out these pieces. There are four back pieces (cut the back pattern in half and then add seam allowance), two outer front pieces, and then inner front pieces where part (where the buttons/buttonholes are) is the same fabric as the front and part is the lining.

Turn the four back pieces into two back layers (with darts, modeled after an existing vest).

Turn the four front lining layer pieces into two, connecting the wool to the lining fabric. (In this picture the two halves are layered over each other!)

Using that same existing vest, mark and add welt pockets to the outer front pieces of the vest.

Turn your six pieces into two vests (a lining vest and an outside vest)—then remember you wanted to add ties to the back.

Make ties, then rip a portion of the seam on the outer vest, stick them in there, and sew everything back up.

Turn your two vests into one vest that’s open at the bottom and at the shoulder seams.

Hand-sew the shoulder straps together, so that the front piece is eating the back piece.

Close up the bottom of the vest (This will also need to be hand sewn if you don’t want top stitching.

Attach the slide buckle to one of the straps on the back.

Add buttons and buttonholes (which were matching stitchable, thank goodness).

For the chains/pocket watch, his fob is like… a little ball with sequins on it. I did not have any sequins and was running out of time to buy more supplies, so I wire wrapped a marble, stuck it on the end of my chain (which was fed through the buttonhole), and then attached the other end to my pocket watch.

Ingredients

Simplicity pattern 4083

Green mystery fabric (for the mockup)

Leftover gray fabric (for the mockup)

Red velvet

Sew-in interfacing

Thrifted black satin bedsheet

Several spools of white thread

Piping

Buttons

The Process

Make the man-sized pattern into a large boy-sized pattern using your measurements. Mostly measure along the waistlines and shoulder lines, adjust the height, and then improvise the armholes. Create a mockup of the coat using the Green Mystery Fabric, following the package directions except for anything having to do with the bottom half of the coat (because you connected the top and bottom pieces together).

Be unable to decide between the probably easier to work with stripey red velvet and the more color-accurate solid red velvet. Buy both just in case, and then STILL have to put it up to a vote.

Decide on the more color-accurate solid red velvet. Cut all the pattern pieces from your velvet, then start sewing white lines onto it like a lunatic. This will make the fabric sit oddly, so be careful. Steam the heck out of it to try to get it to sit a little more flat instead of rippling. (It does not really work.)

After using all of the white thread in the house, start constructing the darn thing! Sew the front and back pieces together along the sides, back, and shoulders. Repeat on a clone made of the black satin for a lining.

Apparently I didn’t get pics of this like I thought, but baste everything together at the collar, making a nice fabric sandwich—this is sort of like what the pattern directions say to do, except you have more layers. It should go outer shell, right side facing you; collar, right side facing outer shell; black lining, right side facing outer shell; and then facing pieces (don’t forget to sew the back and front facings together!), right sides facing outer shell. Base that sucker together because it will NOT stay in place when you sew it on the machine, I’m sure.

Before committing and machine stitching that thing together, add the piping between the outer shell and lining along the front edge (on the lapels, and down the front). On the bottom half of the coat, where the little protrusion would turn inwards, sandwich the piping in like this:

Baste that part too. Machine sew all those layers together along the front edges and collar.

Where the facing meets the turned in edge of the bottom of the coat, hand stitch the two pieces together so the raw edges are turned inward.

Panic and remember this coat needs pockets. Add welt pockets with flaps to the front of the coat. Put them too close together and only be a little disappointed.

Add the sleeves in, lining sleeve to lining and outer sleeve to outer shell.

At the bottom of the sleeve, make sure to leave them open a few inches, because his coat has surgeon’s cuffs.

Don’t actually know how to do surgeon’s cuffs, but improvise something so that the raw edges are all turned in, there’s an opening down the seam, and some of the red on the inside overlaps the outside of the sleeve. Hand stitch all of this together while on a long car ride.

Mark, cut, and hand-bind buttonholes—4 on each of the lapels and three on the front—while getting an oil change. Whipstitch the facings to the lining on another long car ride.

Hem all of the remaining raw edges.