Progress

Got started on my double-breasted sleeved waistcoat this weekend and things are coming together. My fabric came this weekend, and I have to say that I absolutely love it. I'm using an indigo colored kerseymere from Burnley and Trowbridge, and this fabric is amazing. The color is beautiful and I love how this fabric lays. It even marks well. Too bad that I got purchased the last of it and it was a one-off because I cannot tell you how awesome this stuff is. In a somewhat true-to-history fashion, my fabric came in a 1.5-yard section and two 1-yard sections that I will have to make work to cut all of my pieces.

I got off to a good start this weekend. I cut my linen pieces for the interfacing for the fronts and pockets then coated them with Tragacanth Gum to turn them into buckram. The first coat went fine. After I put the pieces out to dry after the second coat, we had a sudden storm show up and I had to run out in the rain to get them. Luckily, I was able to rapidly dry my pieces with a hair dryer so they weren't ruined and stiffened up nicely. I bet this sort of thing occasionally happened in the 18th century, and I wonder what they would have done in place of using a hair dryer?

These first two images show progress on the pockets. First, you baste the interfacing to the fashion fabric to keep it in place. Then you fold the edges and secure the fabric to the interfacing. Finally, you attach the lining by folding under the seam allowances and sewing an underhand stitch along the edges to secure the fabric. The top example is the finished pocket flap. The bottom example shows the pocket before the lining is attached and the basting stitches are removed.

You can see how nicely the flap cleans up once it's underhand stitched and the basting is removed. I try to keep the stitches small and uniform to keep them like original garments. Unfortunately, occasional imperfections in the linen thread make a clump show up in the outer stitching. Some people do not interface their pockets (I originally didn't), but I've found that they stay in place better and retain their shape on your body better if you interface them. 

If my waistcoat were a turkey, there is no chance that it would be dry with all the basting that I did. Can we first get into how ridiculous the interfacing piece looks? If you want the entire front panel to say in place you have to interface it. Everything about this waistcoat is ridiculous, and I love it. 

Cutting the interfacing piece was a bit interesting. to achieve that interesting shape, I traced the outside edge of the front panel piece on my linen for interfacing. I continued around to trace most of the neck and a few inches of the bottom of the piece. Next, I took the interfacing piece from the single-breasted waistcoat that this pattern is modified from, and lined up the back edge of that piece to the matching location on my pattern and drew the back line for the interfacing piece. I set the interfacing back 1/4" and basted the outside edge of the interfacing.

This was the first project that I've gone baste crazy on the interfacing and it is completely worth it to make your front much smoother and reduce the chances of loose fabric. When basting, I suggested working from the outside edge in to ensure that everything goes down smoothly.

 Personally, I baste from the wrong side of the fashion fabric on the edges of the interfacing to make sure that everything is in place properly, but base from the right sides in the big empty spots to make sure that the fabric is laying flat. If you have nice hard interfacing, you can't tell if your fashion fabric is laying flat against it unless you can see it. Doing the basting on two different sides leads to some pretty cool patterns on the fabric though.

On our next episode, we will be finishing the fronts by securing the edges and interfacing, adding the pockets and flaps, sewing on the turn backs, and sewing the button holes.