Completed - January 2009. Documented - March 2009.
On New Years Eve 2008,
Siobhan very excitedly told me about the upcoming Steampunk Ball at Elysium (the local goth club).
I had absolutely no idea what Steampunk was.
The simple explanation is Futuristic Victorian society (somewhat like the old TV show and horrible movie remake Wild Wild West).
For more info, check out
Brass Goggles.
Moving on… Siobhan got the whole gang jazzed about the idea of making costumes and dressing up (we’ll take any opportunity to dress up).
So I thought about what I might do…
Just before New Years, I had been in Portland, OR visiting my sisters. My eldest sister Libby is good friends with Leanne Marshall (perhaps you’ve heard of her?), who was at the time preparing for her big move to New York. She had a ton of fabric scraps to share and offered them to the both of us. I happily filled a carry-on suitcase with several random fabrics, having no idea what to do with any of them (many would only be suitable for small projects like tote bags).
At home I sorted through the random fabrics and found that I had picked a few brown ones. I then decided to make a vest, because it was the closest thing to a corset (common Steampunk female garment) that I could make myself.
I settled on two upholstery fabrics (one tan, one brown), a brown woven cotton, an ivory silk that was nice and sturdy (if I ever find that type of fabric again, I’ll be the happiest girl in the world), and silver lining fabric (acetate or polyester) that there happened to be plenty of.
While I had never made a vest before this, I had made a dress with princess seams that had a lined bodice. I wanted to relearn princess seams as I felt that I hadn’t really mastered them the first time around. Also, I would be learning to buttonholes with this project, but I wanted to try something a little more difficult…
…like exposed zipper seams!
Because I already had all fabric I needed, the notions I needed to buy were buttons, a zipper, thread, and a buckle. Greg and I purchased a grab bag of buttons from Hobby Lobby and I opted for a 36” zipper (leaving me with 72” to work with).
Cutting the pieces out was easy in that I was confined to the size of the scraps I was using. I almost used the tan fabric for the inside convex pieces on the front AND the back, but I incorrectly cut the back pieces, so I had to use the brown woven cotton fabric (I ended up being much happier with those results).
Now… it is really hard for me to start projects because I’m a procrastinator and I’m lazy (something I’m working on changing). For instance, I am writing this blog two months after I actually completed the project. So I enlisted Siobhan’s help with getting me to work on my vest. We laid out an entire Saturday two weeks before the ball to work on our outfits. During that day, I went from cut out pieces to a vest with exposed lining and no buttons. Quite an accomplishment for this little lady…
I started off by sewing together the princess seams in the lining because they, of course, would not be seen while I am wearing it. I incorporated my mother’s teachings of how to pin princess seams as I felt the sewing instructor I originally had show me didn’t do a great job, especially when dealing with slippery fabric. This worked out really well, and princess seams are now my bitch. After that, I sewed the outside back fabrics, inserting the tabs in the back with the buckle.
And now for the fun part… zipper seams in the front!
I attached the zipper onto the convex side of the princess seam, pinning the inside of the zipper teeth 5/8” away from the edge, and using a zipper foot to baste it in. To sew the concave side of the princess seam to the convex side, I tried using the zipper foot again, but it didn’t get quite as close to the teeth as I wanted. The next time, I tried using a 3-groove pintucking foot (which works for piping and invisible zippers) and yielded much better results.
I decided to also put zippers on the flaps which ended up being more difficult that the princess seams were (sharp corners and all).
My poor construction led to the deterioration of the flaps after I wore it:
And as you might have noticed, I also put zippers along the bottom of the vest front,which worked out pretty well.
Between the zipper seams and the buttons, I had to attach the outside fabric to the lining, which wasn’t so bad. However, when I flipped it out, the vest was super balloony, and wasn’t entirely helped by ironing. I then realized that I probably should have trimmed the seam allowances to allow the fabric to lay flat. The last part before the buttons was sewing the inside lining together which was insanely frustrating and difficult. I ended up sewing the remaining lining together by folding the seams allowances over each other and stitching-in-the-ditch on the outside. I later showed my mom (a master seamstress) my work, ashamed that the lining looked so tacky, and she said, “Oh sweetie, all lining looks like that.” Phew!
Last, but not least… buttons! I had been using my mom’s Bernina 1130 to sew all my garments (I now have my own… thanks, eBay!), and it comes with an awesome automatic buttonholer. Not much to tell on this part except I required my mom’s assistance on button placement after sewing the holes (I recommend getting help on this from others). The vest was finished just hours before the ball.
To complete the outfit, I had a $40 anthropologie Victorian style blouse (went on clearance a few weeks later for $20), a $20 anthropologie skirt, a $26 floor length green velvet coat from eBay, my yellow leather utility belt, a vintage ladybug clock necklace, and my favorite Fluevog Bond Girl Boots, wrapped in grommet leather strips. To top it off, I had some goggles purchased on eBay that I further steampunked up with some clock parts, gears, and the remaining 10” of zipper I had left (yes, the vest required 62” of zipper total).
And that’s about the size of it. I got a few compliments on my coat at the ball, but it was too dark for anyone to really notice the vest. However, my friends appreciated the work I put into it and I was proud of it, so that’s really all that matters.
What I would do differently:
I’m planning on doing a different view of the vest pattern with some other scraps I have; some formerly Leanne’s, some mine. I’m going to need to adjust the front and back of the top middle parts of the vest to make it smaller as I am shorter between the shoulders and bust than normal patterns and store bought clothes. Also, I will need to redraw the armholes after adjusting. Other than that, I might go a size larger as the vest was pretty tight or I might make the buttonholes looser. We’ll see…
