Turning a Lined Vest
Copyright/Licenses
Copyright 2004 Silver Seams.
The Pattern
I am *always* having to spend a lot of time figuring out how to make a lined vest, so I'm going to write the
directions out here. I always end up with something I can't turn rightside out properly without ripping out
a
seam and sewing it in a different order.
First, sew the shoulder seams in both shell and lining. Next, sew the lining to the shell from one lower front corner to the other. That is, up one front edge, around the neckline, and back down the other. Of course, if your fabric's at all unstable, you'll want to start at the middle back neck and go down each side, but the end result is the same seam.
Sew the lining to the shell around around each armhole.
Now, turn the whole thing right side out. Open each side up and sew the side seams... lining to lining, shell to shell.
Here's the tricky part. What you should have now is a vest that's entirely sewn except the bottom hem (and if you wanted the shell and lining hemmed separately, do that and skip this whole bit), and is right side out. Lay the vest out flat (opened up), and turn it *halfway* wrong side out. That is, turn the hems out and up until the top half of the vest (which is still rightside out) is inside the bottom half (which is wrongside out), and you can bring the lining and shell together, right sides together, above the shoulders. (If that made *no* sense, email me.) Sew the whole thing across, leaving just enough of an opening at the middle back to turn it all back rightside out, then handstitch that opening closed and you're done.
Unless you're me, and putting together a Renfaire jerkin. In that case, you might want to sew around three edges of the skirting (and its lining), turn it rightside out, and put it inside the partly-wrongside-out jerkin, and sew it all around leaving the turning opening in the middle back between the jerkin lining and the skirting lining, *then* turn it all round. I'm not sure if that's a period construction method (all my costuming books sort of handwave the lining bits, and sometimes I think they just interline), but that's what I do.