First try at a waistcoat

[DrLang]

Moving on to a matching waistcoat for my linen trousers. Because I have a distinct pot belly, this time I decided to draft a pattern from the Rundschau belly waistcoat draft that was posted here:
https://movsd.com/BespokeCutter/index.php?topic=281.0

I've through quite a few adjustments and I think I'm now stuck.

Some thoughts:
It's quite pointy in front, but I assume that's mostly a style thing that I can modify. Trying it on with the linen trousers, I want to make it 1-1.5 inches longer in the back. The bottom of center front is about perfect. I think that will have a significant affect on the shape of the bottom in the front to my liking.

My right shoulder is sloped. Right now I have it adjusted at the top, but I think the right side is still collapsing. I understand that a better way to fix this is in the cut. I have a copy of Cabrera and plan to try his method on the next one.

Problems:
I feel like the back in general leaves something to be desired. Too much easy, but every adjustment I have tried seems to make it worse, not better. Could this just be an issue of the toile fabric I used here being too lightweight to see what a final pass would actually look like?

I am reasonably happy with the front except for the part that just dangles at the bottom. I made the darts more aggressive and that helped a little, but what you see is what is left. The draft tries to deal with the larger belly by changing the angle of the center front below the waist line. My attempt was very subtle and I wonder if I should just make it turn inward a lot more. Or maybe add another smaller dart? I'm not really sure how closely a waistcoat should fit under the belly to give a nice silhouette.

[posaune]

Well DrLang, I think you have the wrong draft. How large is the difference between Waist and bust circ? The length: it should reach over the high hip in back. That is about ca. 8 cm under the waist. It looks a bit short and a bit undarted. Pin a dart in backarmhole to shoulderblade to get a cleaner finish.
And the front I would not do as long as is. When you sit down it could be wrinkling very much. And it takes all attention to a belly you do not have. In front you do only a second dart if your waist is about 8 cm more than bust.
Lg Posaune

[DrLang]

Well DrLang, I think you have the wrong draft. How large is the difference between Waist and bust circ? The length: it should reach over the high hip in back. That is about ca. 8 cm under the waist. It looks a bit short and a bit undarted. Pin a dart in backarmhole to shoulderblade to get a cleaner finish.
And the front I would not do as long as is. When you sit down it could be wrinkling very much. And it takes all attention to a belly you do not have. In front you do only a second dart if your waist is about 8 cm more than bust.
Lg Posaune

I thought about trying the normal draft, and I almost drew it up last night. My waist and bust are identical, but all of the excess of my waist is in the front. You might think that I don't have a belly (thank you), but I assure you that it's very prominently distended when I'm not wearing a button up shirt.

That said, I would certainly be willing to try the other draft. I wanted to work this one out as far as I could first.

[DrLang]

Another thought that I had was to start with a normally proportioned block pattern and adjust it per Whife's instructions for a pot belly here (Dia 71, Sect. 1). I noticed that they also favor a dart in the side instead of the bottom, which is not where they suggest the dart for a standard corpulent adjustment. It does seem to improve the front contour if I pin the sides of my toile a little bit.

[peterle]

The first i see is, the waistcoat overlaps more at the Belly than at the chest line. Mark the exact overlap along the Front Edge, so you can Close it correctly. This is important for a correct fitting.

Second: when you look at the pattern instructions you will see, that the bottom dart will finally end as a side seam dart.So no need for a new pattern.

For the fit: I think your front balance is probably too short. This can result in an uneven overlap and forward swinging hem. For alteration shift the back parts 1,5 to 2 cm downwards in the side seams.

Transferring the chest and waist Line to the toile, helps to analyze fitting issues

[peterle]

One more thing: the pattern instructions don t mention the back collar stand you need. The 1,5cm from H1 to h1 attach to the back collar stand wich ist 1,5 cm wide and as long as the back neckline. This piece is usually made from front fabric.

[DrLang]

The first i see is, the waistcoat overlaps more at the Belly than at the chest line. Mark the exact overlap along the Front Edge, so you can Close it correctly. This is important for a correct fitting.

This is so obvious that I am surprised that I missed it. That makes a lot more sense than what I was trying to do.

Second: when you look at the pattern instructions you will see, that the bottom dart will finally end as a side seam dart.So no need for a new pattern.

I'm not sure that I understand this. Do you mean that for the final cut, the dart is moved from near the front all the way to the side seam to hide it? I didn't see this in the translation someone posted here, but I don't have the original either.

For the fit: I think your front balance is probably too short. This can result in an uneven overlap and forward swinging hem. For alteration shift the back parts 1,5 to 2 cm downwards in the side seams.

Transferring the chest and waist Line to the toile, helps to analyze fitting issues

I will try to transfer those lines for the next photos. I have added horizontal darts, which seems to help quite a bit, but also really moves the waist line. I will walk backwards and try to move the back down as you suggest.

That reminds me of a question I had. I notice that the draft adds 1 cm more to the bottom of back part compared to the front part. Why is this?

One more thing: the pattern instructions don t mention the back collar stand you need. The 1,5cm from H1 to h1 attach to the back collar stand wich ist 1,5 cm wide and as long as the back neckline. This piece is usually made from front fabric.

I was aware of that. I planned to not worry about it until I dealt with the pattern adjustments first. Is this a bad idea? I can include it in the next toile.

[DrLang]

I've been busy this evening.

Here I did my best to add in the waist and bust lines as peterle suggested. The front is getting a little bit messy, but the thick blue line is the waist from the pattern and the red line is the new waist if I add the side dart. They were correct, the front was off balance. I moved the backs to line up the waist line and it made a little bit of improvement in the front and a big improvement in the back.











Here I tried to add the side dart back in. I am surprised, it did not make as much difference as I expected.










Here I pinned small darts in the back arm hole as posaune suggested. This looks much cleaner to me, though it does cause some problems in the front.



And here I am playing around with the length and shape in the bottom front. This starts to look like a good shape to me.

[peterle]

I'm not sure that I understand this. Do you mean that for the final cut, the dart is moved from near the front all the way to the side seam to hide it? I didn't see this in the translation someone posted here, but I don't have the original either.

The text and the last pic show how to move the bottom dart to the side by slahing and pinching. the dart dissappears in the pocket seam.





I was aware of that. I planned to not worry about it until I dealt with the pattern adjustments first. Is this a bad idea? I can include it in the next toile.
[/quote]

You shouldn´t skip the strip for the fitting. The neckhole is essential for a good fit, especially in this vintage patterns with their tight neckholes.
It´s especially important to join fronts and back right at the shoulder seams. In your latest pics I see your back neckhole is pulled upwards on the shirt collar. To join the parts accordingly, add the 1,5cm strip to the back neckhole and sew front and back together from tip to tip. The surplus 1 cm of the back shoulder seam has to be eased in.

For the pics: I think there is an improvement in balance, but probably the front balance is not yet long enough. Redo the shoulders first and we will see. Skip the armhole darts in the back.

[DrLang]

I took one more stab at a toile with this pattern and gave up. I think I am fighting with a cut that's just not quite right.

I redrafted following the Rundschau draft for standard proportions and made a few subtle changes to accommodate my belly.

I feel like this is getting closer to what I am after, but I'm starting to spin in circles again. The best I can come up with at this point is that the sides probably need to be let out a little bit more. And then there is the low right shoulder that I did not try to correct for in this cut. The armscye in the front doesn't quite look right to me either, but I'm not sure if that will go away once the seam allowance is gone.

[Schneiderfrei]

DrLang, sadly that is an old fashioned draft, that we put up for historical purposes.

A modern draft will calculate the requirement for the dart at the verticle line in the draft, but the angle is tranfered across to the side seam and drawn in 90 degrees anticlockwise, (for the left side).

The dart then forms the opening for the pocket. It is a sort of proto-side body. 

I do feel that you could increase the angle in your shown toile, It just lacks Schluss. It sticks out too much still.

[DrLang]

DrLang, sadly that is an old fashioned draft, that we put up for historical purposes.

A modern draft will calculate the requirement for the dart at the verticle line in the draft, but the angle is tranfered across to the side seam and drawn in 90 degrees anticlockwise, (for the left side).

The dart then forms the opening for the pocket. It is a sort of proto-side body. 

I do feel that you could increase the angle in your shown toile, It just lacks Schluss. It sticks out too much still.

Most of the dart is on the side where the pocket will go as you suggested (visible in the side photos). The vertical dart is there by Whife's suggestion, though with such a subtle disproportion, maybe I can put all of it in the side seam.

I appreciate the feedback about increasing the angle on the dart. I thought about it, but was concerned it would be too much. I should have some time today to make some adjustments.

[TTailor]

A couple of thoughts.
Firstly it looks like you have sloping shoulders in general, so I would make a basic adjustment from the standard draft to adjust the slope and that adjustment would drop the armscye too. You could adjust a bit more for the dropped side.
Once that is done, look at the run of the front armscye line, true up the line by putting the new shoulder lines together and redrawing the armhole. You can do this on the pattern or chalk this on the garment in a fitting stage.

I think darts in the back are useful for a clean look.

It is useful to accommodate a split in the side seam below the waist to allow the hem edge at the sides to splay open.
Some body types need a side seam that does not have any waist suppression. You might try letting the sides out and see what happens with the drag lines that run from chest towards the sides.


There is still too much « air » in the front below the waist.
It is difficult to find a good visual balance in regards to the profile view.
You can pinch more in a vertical dart to reduce the air space, until it gives you the profile desired. Too much and the belly is accentuated even more. Deciding where the bottom edge of the front points are is tricky.


The drafts are a mere starting point as you are finding out, knowing how a draft works and being able to manipulate it for individual shape is challenging.

[DrLang]

Ha! For the first time on this project I feel like I am finally on the right track.

Here I added back darts. I don't know why I left these out of this last toile, but they clearly made a big difference.



And here I altered the shoulders for sloped shoulders. Also a big improvement. Note that I made the same alteration on both sides. I have not attempted to correct for the low shoulder yet. Unless you guys think that there is a critical flaw in this plan, I intend to measure the needed correction at the end and make one last toile with the cut for the right altered for a low shoulder.



And then I played around more with the darts in the front. I feel like this is finally starting to take shape.

The front armscye looks like it could be scooped out a little more at the bottom.

It is useful to accommodate a split in the side seam below the waist to allow the hem edge at the sides to splay open.
Some body types need a side seam that does not have any waist suppression. You might try letting the sides out and see what happens with the drag lines that run from chest towards the sides.

There is already zero waist suppression in the side seams on this. I am a little interested in your suggestion to have a split below the waist in the side seams. I don't think that I have ever noticed this before in other vests, but I could see the advantage in some cases.

[Greger]

Peterle said to add length to the front shoulder. This would drop the armhole down to a better position. And the front is a bit short now.