Project 58: Wedding Waistcoat

I was approached by some good friends who were getting married and they asked me if I could design and make a waistcoat for the groom to wear with his kilt. Seemed like an easy ask at the time.

The three of us went fabric shopping and they picked out a beautiful green silk for the shell and adorable dandelion print cotton for the lining.

I had to make one big revision to the pattern after making a muslin, but it really wasn’t too painful. The bride wanted to embroider the garment, so I figured the best thing to do would be cut out the pieces, serge the edges, and give them to her for her work.

When the pieces came back, she had embroidered over where the two waist darts were supposed to go, so I had to move them. The only potential impact there was that the darts in flat-lined lining were in the original spot. It didn’t turn out too visible in the end.

The bigger issue was discovering that the embroidery had actually distorted the shape of the pieces. With some coaching from the embroiderer / bride I used a steam iron to get at least the large front pieces roughly back in shape. The smaller pieces like the collar, however, just didn’t have enough fabric to play with. I made it work but the collar isn’t what I hoped for.

Oh. I mentioned flat-lining the interior. First time I’ve done that. I cut a set of lining pieces out of osnaburg cotton and sewed them to the fashion lining pieces in the seam allowance to give the garment the weight of outerwear. I hadn’t done that before, but it worked just fine.

At the last minute, I was called out of town to attend the Minnesota Scottish Harp weekend when the featured presenter was grounded by bad weather. That means I won’t get to see the groom wear it at the ceremony, but I’m sure I’ll get to see pictures.