Although I have a
drawer full of patterns I rarely use them as I have discovered over the
years...if it ain’t broke don't fix it (I said that before recently didn't I?)
My go-to pattern for
the jacket is the bodice pattern I used for the chorus costumes. I used this same pattern for the Victorian dresses too! With a bit of manipulation you can get the pattern you want from this,
with the first step being a quick sketch to show the original and where it
needs changing.
The first, and most
obvious, change is the sizing. The bodice pattern will have to be made
larger to get it up to the required 52” chest necessary to cover the bulky
muscles and shirt. As I have this pattern up to a 48”
chest I just need to add on 4” which I will put on around the edges of the
pattern pieces. Eight pieces, with two sides each, mean
I only need to put on about ¼” to each side and wont affect the shaping too
much.
The second point is
that the bodice is made for a womanly figure (if you get my drift) and there
isn't much call for that. So I will ‘flatten’ out the front side
piece to take away any boob allowance. If I was to do this at the chest area
by taking it away, this would change the sizing. But by adding to the waist area I will be keeping the measurement I
require!
The neckline needs to
be raised to make it sit closer to the collar line and this is to be done both
front and back. Then the centre front needs to have the
bottom changed so that it forms a ‘V’ upwards and not down as the original
pattern is (ignore where I drew the line wrong on the right hand side lol).
The front facing can
be incorporated into the front pattern piece just to make life easier and
quicker when constructing the jacket.
Finally, the ‘tails’
need to be added to the back pattern pieces.
The final pattern
pieces should end up looking something like this...
I made up the pattern pieces to plan, cut them out and pinned them to the Beast muscle and shirt to check for fitting.
I just needed to make some adjustment to the side front pieces by cutting some off the width and the bottom needed a trim to get the downward 'V' right. Here the front view also has some of the trim I intend to use pinned to it and a stand collar also pinned on.
Here is the back view, I am still undecided on whether the tails need thinning out a bit.
Next step is to sew it all together!
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