<\/a>When I hit the two-weeks-to-showtime mark on the Ezio project, I had exactly one piece (the shirt) assembled. I had a lot of bits and pieces cut, embroidery just about complete, embossing technique mostly\u00a0sorted. Ten days out, I finally got around to basting up the waistcoat.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>I used a line of basting to mark out the embossed band on the velvet for the lower tails, then stamped it out one motif at a time as described in this post<\/a>. It\u2019s a speedy process, but I can\u2019t overstate my relief when it\u00a0turned out looking\u00a0decent\u2014there’s no way to undo the embossing once it’s done, and if I’d screwed up the placement I would have been shit out of luck. I had barely a yard of the velvet to begin with, so there was no room to recut such a large piece (and at this point, basically no time to order more if it came to that.)<\/p>\n I sewed the back vent first, placing velvet and linen with right sides together, then turned it right side out and machine basted around the outside edge to hold the layers together. After some waffling, I ended up understitching both sides of the vent\u00a0by hand to make it lie flat.<\/p>\n <\/a>To assemble the lower layer, I attached the tails to the upper edge of the chevron-shaped facing<\/a> and the upper flap to the lower edge of the facing. Then I attached a cotton muslin stay to the inside of the facing to prevent it from sagging, and anchored the upper flap and facing together with a curved line of topstitching (backstitched by hand.)<\/p>\n Then I slapped it up on the dress form with all the layers pinned in place, for a brief gloating break.
\n<\/a>Fortunately it didn’t require substantial alterations, and I got to make fun of myself for wasting time basting shit by hand instead of tearing it to pieces and doing a slew of frantic adjustments. The bodice assembly was about as straightforward as it gets: staystitching, princess seams, set-in sleeves, etc. I used a slippery mystery synthetic lining in the sleeves so it wouldn’t catch too much on\u00a0the shirt, and planned to line the rest\u00a0of the bodice with muslin to keep it as breathable and easy to wear as possible.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>Looks like an assassin coat, right?<\/p>\n