Vest is done!
The last thing I had to do was
putting in the button holes and attach the button. I’ve never done button holes
before, but it turns out that there’s a specialty presser foot for the sewing
machine that makes it pretty easy. I practiced a few button holes on scraps of
fabric to make sure I had the technique down before doing them on the actual
vest.
Finally, I sewed the buttons on, and
the vest was complete. Here it is!
Now, this thing here represents
about $35 in materials, and 26 hours of work. Obviously, if I were more
experienced, I’d be able to work a bit quicker. And there are cheaper places to
buy materials than where I did. But if I were to charge my equivalent hourly
rate at my actual job, this would represent a nearly $1000 garment. Kinda put
those $65 vests that vendors sell at events into perspective, huh?
Don’t think I’ll be giving up my day
job to become a tailor.
So, what to do next?
Well, my design calls for a canvas
cowl instead of trying to do any kind of burn makeup, so I moved on to that part.
The plan was to make this in three pieces: a single strip down the center,
flanked by shaped pieces on either side. I actually had been feeling a bit of
trepidation about this part, wondering how I was going to shape the side
panels. Then I remembered I have this handy drawing tool from my old college
drafting classes: it’s a flexible ruler that you can bend into curved shapes
which it will hold. So I wrapped this thing over my head from front to back,
and that gave me the curve I would need to draw. I traced that out on my
material, then I drew a second curve that followed the first but offset by half
an inch to give my seam allowance. I folded the fabric in half so I could cut
out both side pieces at once by following this outside curve.
The center strip was easy. I first
used a tape measure to get the distance between the outside corners of each of
my eyes, added an inch for seam allowance, and that gave me the width. For the
length, I applied a tape measure to the first curve I drew on the side panels.
Then I just cut out a rectangle of that length and width.
Next was the trickiest part: sewing
it all together. It was tricky because, in another first for me, I was sewing a
straight edge to a very curved edge. This would result in the panels distorting
into a 3-dimensional shape as I was sewing them. So to make sure they stayed
aligned while I ran them through the machine, I used a lot of pins. But I got them sewn together. I actually stopped the
seams about a third of the way down the back of the head, to make sure it would
be easy to put on and take off.
The end result wasn’t too bad. It
does fit a little loose, but it’s useable for now. Probably later on, I’ll add
grommets and lacing to the open seams in back, so I can snug it down a little
better.
Oh, you may notice my cost of
materials has bumped up another ten bucks. That’s because I picked up a cheap
Freddy Kreuger glove from a costume store. While my eventual goal is to
construct my own glove and arm, I want to wear this costume for Halloween, and
there’s no way I will complete that project in time.
Cost of
supplies: $92
Time: 28hrs
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