Tutorial Anyone Can Sew: Vests and Jackets Tutorial (All sizes, Pattern Free)

So now your resin child has jeans and a shirt; you are both on your way to a fashionable future! Next is something every one can use in thier closet, a tried and true classic staple that never goes out of fashion for either gender: Vests and Blazer Jackets.

With this tutorial, you should be able to learn how to make a basic lined blazer jacket and/or lined vest. Each of these possess endless possibilities for customization; pair a silk vest and a clean jacket for a romantic look for a male doll or a t-shirt and a short vest for a trendy girl.

While this tutorial is as simple as the jeans tutorial or the shirt tutorial I have posted here, this process has a bit more work involved and a lot more patience. I suggest practicing with a different material before cutting into expensive fabric! This one takes a bit of practice to get just right!

Usual warning: I am by no means a professional. I do not know the proper way to sew most items. I kinda made this up through trial and error. As such, I am open to suggestions for improvement. Also, if you have any questions of confusion, please feel free to ask me anything! I will do my best to help!

You will need:

• Material: One type for the jacket/vest and one type for the lining (if you choose to line your item). Make sure you are using quality fabric! You will get frustrated very quickly if your seams keep tearing out due to cheap, low thread count material (Trust me....). Also, if you are lining a jacket, make sure your materials are thin. Too much bulk can hinder arm movement.
• Thread
• Scissors
• Pins
• Tape measure
• Iron + ironing board
• Buttons (optional)
• A clear idea of what you want to make (I look through fashion magazines to help decide the shape of the collar, shape, color, etc.)
• Doll- Again, Suke will be assisting us
• Human (preferably you)

One: Measure your doll's back at the widest point. If measuring from the shoulders, be sure to measure from edge of one arm to the edge of the other (as seen in the picture). Be sure to measure both the hips an the shoulder to make sure you get the widest point.




Measure your doll's back from the top of the shoulder to the point at which you want your jacket to end.


Two: Take the measurement of the shoulders/hips and add 1/2 an inch. Take the measurement of the back length and add 1/2 an inch. Cut out one a square using these dimensions in your jacket material. This is your back piece.


Three: From the middle of your doll's chest, measure the widest point on your doll to their side. Again, this will either be the chest or the hips. Suke's measure is two inches




Measure your doll's front from the shoulder to the point at which you want your jacket/vest to end (this should be close to the same as the mesurement found in the back)


Four: Add 1/2 an inch to the width measurement. Add 1/2 an inch to the length measurement. Cut out two pieces of material in your jacket material using these dimensions. These are your fron pieces.


You should now have three pieces of material: two of the same width (the front pieces) and one with a larger width (the back piece).


Five: This step is optional.If you want a straight, boxy jacket/vest, skip this. Lay your doll on the back piece. Your doll has natural curves you want to accentuate. Following the line of your doll's body, trim the edge of the material off. Do NOT cut past the armpits! Do not cut too much off! You want your doll to be able to wear clothes beneath their jacket/vest so you don't want it skin-tight.

 

Six: With the right sides together (right side means the side of the material you will see when the outfit is finished), line the edge of a front piece to the edge of the back piece. Using the back piece as a guide, cut out the same curve onto your front piece.


Repeat for the other front piece. You should have three pieces that look like this:


Seven: Drape one of the front pieces over your doll. By now you should have decided how you want your jacket/vest to look. Cut out the neck shape that you want. Suke wants a deep V front, which is basic to many blazers. However, you can do a deep scoop, a normal neck opening, or anything you can imagine. Suke also wanted a rounded bottom, so I cut it out as well. You can leave it as is for a square bottom or however you like.


Cut the same pieces out of the other front piece (I cheat and trace the pieces out using the first piece as seen in the picture)


As you can see, I folded over a bit of material where my jacket will open. This is optional (It is for later when you sew the lining to the jacket. It does not make a huge difference, as I have learned. It just makes it so that the lining does not come to the edge of the material.)

You should be able to see the makings of a jacket!




Eight: Next you are going to cut the arm holes out. With the material still on your doll, find the joint where your doll's arm meets his/her body. You want to keep your doll's clothing on when you do this so that you can get the jacket or vest on over the bulk of their clothes. You should be able to feel that the shoulder joint makes a "C" shape from the front through their clothes. You want to cut along that joint-line, leaving about 1/8 an inch for seam allowance. TIP: You want to make the arm opening a bit bigger than you would for a shirt (your doll will want wiggle room) so I make the arm opening longer than I would for a shirt.


Nine: Much like you did in step seven, use the back piece as a guide to cut out the sleeve on each of your front pieces.

Your shirt pieces should look like this (you can see a vest!):


Ten: These next steps have to do with the lining. This is not required to make the vest/jacket. If you choose to not do the lining, just skip of couple of these next few steps and hem in the appropriate spots. Next, you want to get out your lining material. I am using this pretty turquoise material. I do not suggest this type of material if you are just learning to sew; it slips a bit and frays like crazy. Anyways, you want to duplicate each piece of the shirt you have already cut out. You can do this by laying the two pieces of material together with the right sides facing one another. Then, cut out the lining material using the other material as a guide.
You should get pieces that look like this:


Eleven: Now to begin sewing! With the right sides together, line up one of the front pieces with its approprate side of the back piece, such as this:

Sew both pieces in place:

 

Twelve: Repeat step eleven for the lining. You now have two sets that look like vests! If you are making a vest, skip the following steps about sleeves. If you are wanting to make a collarless vest, you are almost done! Just improvise the last few steps to fit your needs. Simply place the lining and the vest pieces right side together. Sew the two pieces together by sewing the neck opening and the armholes together. Then, sew the sides of the jacket material only close. Repeat for the lining. Then sew the bottom of the vest and the lining together. Be sure to leave a hole so that you can turn your work right side out! Once it is right side out again, sew up the opening and you are finished! Add buttons or faux pockets as desired!


Thirteen: Next you will start a sleeve! Measure the length of your doll's arm. Suke wants hers to hit at about 6 inches.


Fourteen: Lay your vest/jacket out so that the bottom of the front piece is to your right and the bottom of the back piece is to your left. This should result in an arc shape where the arm is. Measure the distance of the gap of this arc. As you can see, Suke's measures 3 inch.


Fifteen: Take the measurement found in step thirteen and add 1/2 an inch for the length measurement of your sleeve. Take the measurement found in step fourteen for your width measurement. Cut out two squares of your vest/jacket material using these dimensions.NOTE: You are free to make your sleeves flare or taper however much you want as long as the top of the sleeve measures the same as the measurement found in step fourteen.


Sixteen: Lay the sleeve piece beside the half circle you cut out of the shoulder of the shirt. Using that as a guide, trim the top of the sleeve piece so that it forms an arc that fits perfectly inside shoulder of the shirt. Try to trim as little as possible so maintain the length (in other words, don't form your arc a half in inch down into the sleevze! Form the arc right at the end of the material).


Seventeen: Repeat step sixteen for the other sleeve piece (I cheat and just use the first piece I made as a guide).


Eighteen: In this step, you will make the lining to the sleeve. With the right sides together, lay the sleeve pieces on top of the lining material. Using the already existing sleeves as guides, cut out two sleeve pieces in the lining material.


Nineteen: With the right sides together, pin the sleeve to the shirt. You want to do this so that the corner of sleeve arc matches with the corner of the arc on the shirt. Your should look something like this:


Twenty: Sew the sleeve to the shirt.


Twenty-One: Repeat steps nineteen and twenty for the other sleeve.

Here you can see the sleeve successfully sewn to the shirt.

Twenty-Two: Repeat steps nineteen and twenty for both sleeves of the lining pieces.


Twenty-Two: With the right sides together, lay the jacket pieces together. Make sure that they line up (i.e. th back piece is with the back piece, etc.). It should look like this:

Note that mine isn't prefectly lined up to show you that there was in fact a turquoise layer beneath there somewhere.

 

Twenty-Three: Now you are going to connect the lining to the jacket! No, don't fret! It's easy! Start at the sleeves. You want to sew the two pieces together at the very end of the sleeve. Make sure you sew straight or your sleeves won't line up correctly. If you are doing a vest, you want to sew the lining to the vest material at the arm holes. Just follow the arc of the arm hole, trying to keep close (-ish) to the edge.


Your jacket is now connected! Repeat for the other sleeve.


Twenty-Four: Now you are going to sew the sleeves of the jacket and the lining close. You will do this in one shot. Starting at the armpit of the jacket, sew straight down the sleeve al the way to the armpit of the lining.


Repeat for the other arms as well.


Twenty-Five: Next, sew up both sides of the jacket close. Starting at the bottom, sew straight up to the armpit.


Twenty-Six: Repeat step twenty-five for the lining. Your jacket and your lining should line up pretty well now:


NOTE: If you want to put any darts in your jacket/vest, this is the last chance to do them! SO make those darts now if you must!

Twenty-Seven: Still turned inside out, you want to sew the jacket and lining together at the bottom. Follow any curves you may have cut in step seven.


Wow, you are almost done! Look, you have a jacket-like object right now! You can even try it on your doll!




Twenty-Eight: Turn your jacket back inside out right this moment! Now you will sew up the sides. Like I mentioned earlier, I folded under an extra 1/4 an inch on the sides so that I could sew the lining to it. It did not make a huge difference, so it is really your choice if you want to do it the way I did. If you choose to, though, you may need to rip out a couple of stitches from step twenty-seven. If you decide against my experiment, just sew straight up the side piece much like you did for the bottom in the previous step until you get to the neck opening you cut in step seven.

This is how mine looked. If you didn't do it my way, your lining will go all the way to the edge of the jacket material instead of having that bit of stripey material peeking over the edge of the inside.

Twenty-Nine: Turn your jacket right side out. Be sure to poke those corners of your jacket really well to make them as sharp as they should be! Now you will start your collar. Measure from the beginning of your neck opening to the midpoint of the back neck opening of the jacket.

 

Thirty: Measure how far out you want your collar to go. Suke wanted the widest point to be 1/2 an inch.


Thirty-One: Add about 1/4 an inch to the measurement found in step twenty-nine. Add about 1 inch to the measurement found in step thirty. Use these dimensions to cut out a square of your jacket material.


Thirty-Two: Have you decided what kind of collar you want? Well, you better hurry up then cause this is when we cut the collar shape! I want the basic blazer shape, so I cut almost like a lightening bolt shape off the edge of the material (Note that I cut a bit to much off- oops). Unfortunatley, there is no set way to do this; it just takes practice. Practice makes perfect!


Thirty-Three: With the right sides together and using the piece you made in step thirty-two as a guide, cut out another collar piece in your jacket material. These are your two top collar pieces. Next you will make a backside for each collar piece. To do this, take one of the collar pieces and, with the right sides of the materials together, cut out another shape using the first as a guide. Repeat for the other collar so that you have a set of four collar pieces that stack to look like this:


Thirty-Four: Next you want to sew the matching collar pieces together. With the right sides together, sew along the edge of the collar piece that you cut the design into. Make sure your sewing is sharp and precide to maintain those points angles.
Repeat for the other collar piece.


Thirty-Five: Turn the pieces right side out (you may need to use the tip of something to poke those points so that they are... well, pointy). You will need to iron the collar pieces so that they will remain in this position. Look at how nice they are!


Thirty-Six: Next, you want to pin your collar to your jacket. It doesn't need to be perfect; you are just testing out your collar before sewing. Place the collar on so the bottom of the collar starts right where your lining from step twenty-eight stops (you should have an unfinished edge at every place your collar sits). When placed on the jacket correctly, you should have a collar that meets (actually overlapping a bit) in the middle of the back, like this:

(It meets, I swear, it just doesn't look it)

Take a pin to mark exactly where the two collars meet. Remove your collar from the jacket (keeping this last pin intact).

Thirty-Seven:Trim the collar pieces up to the edge of the pin while still leaving yourself enough room for seam allowance. Take the pin out. Now flatten both collar pieces out and place them together so that the right sides are touching, like this:


You want to sew the two pieces together so that there is no visible seam once the collar is folder right side out.


Refold you material so that the right sides are out again.

Note: I did my collar differently then what I am directing here in the tutorial due to the fact that I used a striped material. Pretty much just added a back panel that spreads the length or the back collar. I did this so that the striped would go in the same direction XD Yours will not have that middle piece you see above; instead, the two long pieces will just meet.

 

Thirty-Eight: The next part is a bit tricky and also requires a bit of practice. Turn your jacket inside out again. Take your collar piece. You want to pin the collar piece to tha jacket material. Make sure you do the following:

• You want the rough edge of the collar lined up with the rough edge of the jacket so that the folded edge faces the inside of the jacket (see picture for more reference).
• I fold the collar in half lenghtwise to find the midway point. I do the same with the jacket to find the midway point of the collar (the midway point of the collar will be found on the backpiece). I then pin the collar to the neck opening at the midway points. This ensures that your collar is even once you sew it on.
• This part is a bit tricky: You want the collar to taper to a thin point at each end. To achieve this, you need to pin the collar on at an angle so that the end of each side of the collar at a point... err.. jsut see my diagram (I can already hear the questions; I need to learn how to explain better...)

Diagram for clarification


Collar pinned onto my jacket

Thirty-Nine: Now you are going to sew the collar on. When you sew the collar on, you want to sandwich the collar between the jacket material and the lining material. Make sure your seam catches all three materials as you sew!


Forty: When you sew, be sure to leave a small hole unsewn so that you can turn your jacker back right side out. I like to leave mine in the back because a) it's the easiest to acces to reclose and b) you can't see the back when it is on the doll. Anyways, once you have sewn everything but the small hole, turn your jacket right side out, pulling the lining sleeves into the jacket sleeves. Handsew (COUGH or machine sew it and be lazy like me COUGH) the hole close. Iron the collar of the jacket down. If your material is being stubborn, you may have to tack the collar down with a couple of hand stitches on the underside where you won't see it. You are just about done!


Forty-One: Add small deatils, such as buttons, closures, faux pockets, pins, or patches and enjoy!


Note: I actually shortened the length of the jacket and the sleeves as originally planned at the beginning of the tutorial; Suke decided halfway through that she wanted a shorter jacket with sleeves she could push up- Blame the Vogue Magazine she was looking at in between modelling for me!

Thank you so much for viewing my tutorial! If you have any questions at all or you are having trouble, let me know (either here or pm) and I will do all I can to help! I welcome all suggestions and pictures *wink wink* I love you all!

 

FAQ and Tips
On this jacket/vest, you want crisp, clean, and pointy points. The wonderful fenris has a tip to achieve this

That explains all of those snips in all of my vintage dress! Who had thunk it! Thank you fenris!

Having trouble finding material? Niteshadepromise has a suggestion!

Hey, it's animal friendly too! Great idea, thanks for sharing 33

 

Gallery
If you use this tutorial for a vest or jacket, please share pictures for the gallery!


An amazingly stylish jacket by the incredible weird-doll-grl (used with permission)


Opened jacket to reveal lining (by ragdoll)


Collar-less version with slight mod (I shortened the body length in order to add a bottom panel which I gathered then sewed onto the jacket. then just add a belt!) (by ragdoll)

 

Variations to the Pattern under slight construction
Fenris had asked about a split back styled jacket, such as the style seen here. You can achieve this look by following this tutorial and making a few changes:

1] Instead of cutting the back piece as directed in steps 1 and 2, you will want to create two pieces. To find the dimensions of each back piece, do the following:

• Measure your doll's widest point from the middle of the back to the side (much like you do in step 3 for the front pieces).
• Measure the length of your doll's back from the top of the shoulder to the point at which you want the jacket to end.

Take the measurement found for the width (the first step I have listed) and add 1.25 inches. Take the measurement you found for the length and add 1/2 an inch. These pieces should will become your back piece and should be the same measurements as the front pieces.

2] Fold under the right side of one piece of material 1/4 an inch. Fold under the left side of the other piece of material 1/4 an inch. When you lay your back pieces down beside each other, the folded sides should touch.

3] Note where you want the slit to start on the back of your jacket. You can do this with a pin or a chalk pencil.

4] With the two folded sides still facing one another, you want to overlap the edges in order to sew the seam down the middle of the back. When you overlap the pieces, you want the unfinished edge that is folded under on the top piece to line up perfectly with the edge of the folded end of the bottom piece. See the diagram for details:


5] Starting from the top, sew straight down the back piece where you have the two pieces overlapping. Be sure you stop at the point you marked in step 3 as the beginning of the split.

6] You should now have one piece of material to treat as your back piece. Trim the edges as instructed in Step 5 and cut the arm holes as directed. in step 8.

7] Cut out your lining material as directed in step 10. Lay your lining on top of your backpiece so that line up perfectly. Carefully cut a slitup the lining that matches the slit in the backpiece. This slit needs to be the same length as the slit in the backpiece and be placed in the same exact place.

8] Follow steps 11 through 26 as directed in the tutorial.

9] With the pieces lined up and right sides together as shown in the picture of step 26, you will sew the lining to the jacket material at the slit. Line up the side seams of the lining and jacket. The slit in the lining should match up with the lining in the jacket just right. However, you have 1/4 an inch folded under on each side of the slit in the jacket material. Pin the slit in the lining to the rough edge of the folded over edge of the slit of the jacket material. Then, sew the lining to the jacket along the edge of each side of the slit.

10] Continue on with the tutorial, starting at step 27.

 

Thanks for the tip; it's in the tip pot now!

As for your question: I think I know what that is(Would you mind sending me a pic to be sure. Google isn't giving me anything definite and I don't trust myself). If it is, I will see to adding a section on the end of the tutorial for alteration, including that! In theory, it should not be hard to do at all... I will see what I can do!

Thank you everyone else! happy sewing!

 

XD I had mine sorted by color, size, and type, but then something unfortunate happened... and.... well they spilled... I haven't had the heart to redo it

Niteshadepromise: That is a great idea (especially since its animal friendly )! I will put it in the faqs and tips bowl right now! And HA! I have shoved you from your hole; mwa ha ha ha!

Thank you for all the kind words! And if any of you have questions or suggestions or requests, please don't be afraid to voice your thoughts! I am super nice, I swear

 

Thank you so much everyone! I really do love all the feedback; it is really great motivation!
I have a couple requests:
1) You all know that I am always excited to see pictures of your creations! So if any of you make something with this tutorial, please share!
2) Don't be afraid to ask question! I know this one is a bit more complicated >.>
3) Please let me know what you would like to see in the next tutorial! I have gotten a request for hoodies and footie pajamas >u< Anything else?

PS: Fenris: I have sent you a pm describing the back; did you get it? My pms are acting wonky *sigh* let me know if you didn't and I will just post what I wrote here...

 

Yaaay! We have a new section up: Variations! This is for the different little touches to the pattern to make your jacket exactly as desired! First up is a split style back as requested by the wonderful Fenris. As always, if you have any questions, you know who to ask

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions!~ It seems that footie pajamas are a quite popular I suppose I will do my best And rross, I would totally do a poll, but a) I am not quite sure how and b) I wouldn't know what to put the voting options as... I suppose I could put up a request thread or something of the likes...hmmm...