Normal waistcoats to go with a kilt are too long, they interfere with the top of the sporran. And kilt length waistcoat sewing patterns are not available so I've had to draft up my own. Its about 3 inches shorter than a normal waistcoat. I've used a proper kilt length waistcoat as a reference.
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I draft up my patterns digitally first of all using google sketchup. It’s a great way of getting the pattern perfect, and saves all your work making it easy to tweak. So in future I can draft up the pattern in other sizes quickly.
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It’s also a great way of previsualizing what the end result will look like
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It’s then very quick a simple to draft up the physical pattern onto card.
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Then I lay the cardboard templates onto the tartan and draw around them with chalk
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Its trickier than you may think: Both halves need to be symmetrical otherwise it would look awful. I'm using the centre block of the tartan (they grey element with 8 dark stripes crossing through it) at the middle of the centre front of the waistcoat, so there's only a few places on the fabric the pieces can possibly go. Also, the grain lines on the panels need to all be going the same way.
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I then use a rotary cutter to cut the pieces out, and see! perfectly symmetrical! I'm very happy with that.
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Next I use the templates again to cut out some interfacing. This is a fusible interlining that you apply with an iron. It gives the panel a bit more stiffness.
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I then baste the chalk marks of the fitting darts that they're visible on the reverse.
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