waistcoat, double breasted

It has been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to post anything other than snippets of what we have done, but finally the frantic pace has eased slightly, for the time being.

I thought you might like to see both the pattern and finished product of a DB waistcoat we made recently.
As you can see by the darting, it was made for someone who carries their weight in the front waist...in other words a corpulent cut.
The centre front seam carries some of the shaping in the dart between the panels, and the rest of the shaping is accomplished in a horizontal dart into the waist pocket.
Double breasted waistcoats will always have a slight amount of darting in the CF seam, or along the neck edge, but this one has a bit more than average.

The lapel shape is created by closing the dart along the neckline, then drawing in the desired shape on the pattern...OOPS, the collar pattern I photographed was for the other waistcoat we made for him. Oh well.
The notch collar version, I cut apart so there was a seam between the "lapel" and "collar" and the finished lapel in the picture below has a shawl collar. These collars are laid flat and caught into the shoulder seam, rather than having a collar with a stand that is attached to the back neck like the earlier Victorian style posted here.



The pin visible on the centre front is marking the placement of a hole for a watch chain. We carefully opened a small section of the seam, cut through the hymo, and opened the same small area on the facing seam, secured the stitching well. The other option is to cut an eyelet hole and handwork around it with silk thread and a buttonhole stitch, but I prefer to just open up the seam. The fabric then is not cut.
The back is simply lining, inside and out, with a belt or strap and buckle for adjustments.