Making of a Costume: the Vest (Part 1)

This past week has been a really turbulent whirlwind. I won't get into any specifics, but lets just say that our family could use a lot of good thoughts, healing vibes, and prayers, if you're so inclined.

But in the meantime, remember when I posted some fabrics that I had purchased in a motley of colors? 

I had purchased 3/4ths of a yard of various colors of linen from JoAnns Fabrics on sale. (yay!) I used it to piece together a "mini vest" as part of one of the many hall costumes for Convolution 2013. In this case, I am making a very fitted vest that goes to the top of my waist / bottom rib bone.

Here's a shot of the vest front that I drafted out on muslin (I still hadn't yet found my pattern paper. The red lines are the original "marks". Then I made my mockup to check fit.

The mockup fit, but I did make some minor alterations:

• the muslin piece was a bit too short, so I added one inch to the bottom of the vest
• the bust dart needed to be moved over by a half inch, so that alteration was also noted.
• the armhole needed to be adjusted slightly for better movement in the arm

I noted where on the pattern I wanted to "piece" together the different colors, including the need for a seam allowance for each "piece".

Here's the back panel piece (to be placed on the fold. I made a small alteration to the arm hole from my original, as well as adding the extra inch at the bottom

Here's the pieced together lining. (Yes, you heard that right, the LINING!).

I put the finished lining with the fronts attached on the mannequin to see how it fit. As you can see from the mannequin, the vest only goes to the top of the waist. (The front panels are the same green as the back. Luckily, piecing together the back panel was easy as it is all straight lines.

Once the back piece was done, I started working on piecing together the front. Here's one very small piece of the front panel, which will be also be in three colors.

More later!