Formal Attire

Last week my youngest son graduated from primary school. In the new year he will begin high school.  Before school finished for the year, all of the year 8's from his school attended a leavers dinner.  The theme was Hollywood.  He had been planning what he was going to wear for most of the year.  Initially he requested a suit but buying or making a suit for one wear was rather wasteful so I promised him a waistcoat.  The black was his choice.  

We found the trousers at the op shop.  They were either new or had only been worn once or twice.  They were too wide in the leg for my sons narrow frame and also needed quite a bit chopped off the length.  It is a good thing I can sew really!  The shirt, shoes and tie were bought new but these will all be used again; the shoes and shirt for school and every young man needs a black tie in his wardrobe.

I found the black wool suiting for the waistcoat on a clearance table at Lincraft.  The satin was a remnant from my stash.  I didn't have quite enough to line the inside so the fronts are lined with with a lighter weight grey satin remnant found in my stash.

The pattern was also in my stash and left over from a project I made for my sons school quite a few years ago now.  It is Burda 9812.  

I cut the waistcoat to a size 11 but lengthened it to a size 12.  As I was making it up I had concerns that it may be too short so I made the seam allowances on the shoulders and hem a scant 5mm which lengthened the entire waistcoat 2cms.  I also lowered the neckline around 3cms in total.

I wasn't too sure how to deal with the tie at the back of the waistcoat.  The buckles are quite hard to find and I recalled this from my last waistcoat sewing effort a couple of years ago.  I suddenly realised one night that baseball caps used to have this sort of buckle to adjust the back.  Modern ones don't tend to have this closure.  I did find one around the house but it was a favourite so not able to be sacrificed on this occasion.  A weekend trawl through the $1 shops and I found exactly what I was looking for and in silver.  It did cost $6.99 for the hat but it was worth it to get it looking just right.  The final touch was some stash buttons.

I thoroughly enjoyed this project.  It is quite the departure from my usual sewing projects and the recipient was very enthusiastic about the whole project which helped immensely.  I don't think it will be the last time I make a waistcoat.