I start my new job next week, so I thought I should probably make myself something smart to wear. Hopefully I’ll have just enough time to finish this waistcoat and its matching trousers.
The pattern for this waistcoat is Style 1815 – it’s dated 1990, but I probably bought it in 1997 as I didn’t have my own sewing machine until then. There were no “shorten here for petite” markings on the pattern, so I just folded each piece to take about 2″ out of the length of the body. In hindsight I wish I’d taken a bit less out of the body and balanced it with a bit taken out of the shoulders, but hey. Maybe next time.
The fabric is a sort of a greyish-brown herringbone. I discovered after I’d bought and washed it that it has a high percentage of linen, so I’m hoping that I don’t end up looking too crinkly whenever I wear it.
All I need to do now is slip-stitch the lining side seams together, add the buckle at the back, and work out what I’m going to do about the buttons. My sewing machine absolutely refuses to sew buttonholes for me (despite performing this function perfectly every time I take it back to the shop to complain), so I tend to fasten everything with poppers, and then sew decorative buttons over the top. That may be the answer for this, too. I don’t want to spoil it at the last minute by taking a risk and hoping that maybe this time the buttonhole function might decide to work. Or I might just bite the bullet, and sew them by hand.