The Best Historybounding Accessory? Making an Edwardian Vestee in One Day

Hello everyone and welcome! Today's video is so much fun and I am so excited to share it with you. I needed a quick project, something really easy, really fun, and light-hearted. I've got two really big projects coming up in the next two weeks that are taking all of my time and energy, and I needed a breather. So in comes the Vestee. Now what is a Vestee, you might ask? Well to me it ends up being the absolute perfect thing for a quick weekend project for history bounding. But in actuality, the Vestee seems to be defined as this sort of collar-like front piece that was very very popular throughout the 19-teens that is meant to supplement blouses or dresses or other garments that sort of needs the neckline filled in and filled out. So they are a whole range of different styles and fabrics, but they seem to be mostly defined as being in between a collar or a collar with a jabot, which just fits around the neck, maybe has some ruffles that fall down the front, but the structural part of it is set around the neck. The chemisette on the other side, which is a term that they're still using, it is a term that is regularly used throughout the 19th century as well, but that is a little bit more structured. It actually has a full front panel and a full back panel, it usually ties around the waist. It doesn't always have open sides, there are versions that have more of a sleeveless bodice style to them, and they do also refer to things as under bodices in this era, so there's some overlap between all of those. However, this bestie seems to kind of fit right in the middle of those. It usually has a collar, very elaborate designs around that space, but it also has a front panel. This front panel just is not necessarily the full length to go to the waist, it's not necessarily tied about the waist, it doesn't have a full back, it's just less fabric than a chemisette and more fabric than a collar, which in reality makes it incredibly fast and easy to make, but it gives you a whole wide variety of options in terms of style and what it can go with. And for me, this was so exciting because it, for the most part, seems to use about half a yard of fabric. I have so many scraps of fabric left over from projects that are roughly that size, so it is a great stash buster. I did three of these in one weekend, so it's a one-day project, at most a weekend project, depending on how complicated you're going with your designs, and there's just an infinite number of possibilities. I found examples that had ruffled collars, that had pleated collars, plain ones with extra points, interesting shapes, really tall, really short. The fronts could be elaborated with buttons, or overlaps, or gathers, pleats, and tucks, or more ruffles, and lots of buttons in crazy places. You just have an infinite number of design options, and sort of grab a front, a collar, put them together, see what you like. There's ribbons around the necks, or interesting fasteners, there's just so much variety in terms of styles. Same thing goes in terms of fabrics. There was cotton batiste, or organdy, there was silk gauze, or chiffon, or silk crepe, there were satins, and piquets, and linens, which just seems brilliant for summer. So this, like I said, becomes a great stash buster, because you can not only go for any leftover scraps of white or cream fabrics you have in your collection, but there were references of colored and patterned options as well. So if you have, say, a dark green dress, you might want a light green bestie, or you might want to zazz up a more plain outfit with a plaid, a madras, a stripe, some sort of textural thing. There were lots of lace options, and net options as well. And in fact, I do actually own an original in lace, which is not something that I realized what it was until I started doing this research. So that gave me a great basis for how to actually pattern and size these things, and I'm so totally wearing that way more. I thought it was something that needed to be stitched into a garment in order to be used, but in reality these don't. They're separate items that just get thrown on underneath. So you can wear them with your historic items and make them much more elaborate and exciting, or you can put it under a modern cardigan, a jacket, a vest, and a v-neck of any type, and it just it's going to add so much to your outfit. But they're easy to wear, they're not covering your body in a way that it needs to be a washable garment in the same way, and then it can become something you can just grab out of your collection really fast, throw it on, be totally extra when you just go to the supermarket with pretty much no effort. And I absolutely adore the concept of this garment, and the variety, and the ease in making it. So like I said, I made three this weekend, and I'm going to show you how to pattern all three of them, and then how they're assembled. And I started off by making one that is a silk crepe. It's a very soft and ruffly piece, and sort of crosses over the front and gathers. Then I have another one that is a more plain, simple cotton design made out of a cotton batiste, and it has some interesting button placements, and a pleated ruffed collar. And then the last one, which I fully admit is probably my favorite, is the silk satin one that overlaps in the front with buttons, so that way it looks sort of like a waistcoat front, and has a very high folded, pointy, aggressive, wonderfully spooky collar. And I am so here for that. So all three of these are great designs, and I am definitely making more. I just want to start with some more simple designs that I thought were very quick and easy to make. So let's dive into that, figure out how to come up with our base pattern, and then we will get into how to alter that base to fit a whole variety of options and styles. Your only limit is your imagination. I decided to start by measuring out my antique vesti. I knew that it was going to be a little bit smaller in the dimensions than I actually wanted my versions to be, purely because I wanted mine to wrap up around the back of the neck and have some coverage there. So the original was seven inches wide. I chose to go with nine inches wide for my version. I just went ahead and squared off the bottom, because we'll give the curves depending on these styles that we need. I measured how long it actually was, gave a little bit of extra room there too, and then played around with how far down the slit was and how the neck hole was shaped. Since the neck on this one only goes up to the shoulder point and not around the back, I knew that the curve was going to be a little bit different than if I actually needed it to completely go around my neck. So I took a measurement of the lower part of my neck, where there's still a little bit of muscle, so it's the bigger part of your neck, and drew out a somewhat imperfect circle to match that measurement. This would be my starting base to figure out how this needs to be fit, which I will do in muslin, so I can get the right shape. Again, with the back, I just went ahead and drew out straight lines, figured I will figure out those curves later. So we're just doing a really quick version in muslin. It doesn't need to be the full length. I went ahead and split open the front, where I will have the split for the neck hole, and pinned that into place on a shirt. You can see that there's a lot of extra over the shoulders there, because my shoulders are a little bit sloped. So we're going to be doing two different styles here. The first one is going to be putting a little dart over the shoulder, about where a shoulder seam would need to sit. This will essentially mimic if I'm doing this in two pieces, meaning that I'll have a front and a back. For the next style, I went ahead and also split open the center back. This one is going to have a center back seam. Since it's such a simple design, we don't necessarily have to have shoulder seams. So this means that the neck hole will actually end up being a different shape. So you're going to go ahead and overlap those however they need to lay on top of each other, and put a pin at roughly where the center back needs to be. You may find that you need to kind of adjust this and play with it. You'll also want to find where the back needs to actually stop height-wise. So I just put another pin in there, because it's easier than trying to work with a pencil, in my opinion. And that will give me a very rough shape that I can then go and clean up and cut, so that way I can try it back on again to make sure that it actually did fit correctly this time. So same thing as before, we've just gone ahead and cut open that neck hole a little bit wider. There's still a little bit of fullness at that center back, so I went ahead and overlapped the pieces just a little bit further, and pinned them again. And that will give me my final format, which looks nice and fitted and snug, goes up high enough on the back of the neck, and doesn't gap. The finished patterns here, you can see the shape for the two-piece, and then for the single piece, which ironically I found out that the neckline of the original piece, the ends of the shoulders, actually is the exact same circular curve as my back seam piece. So that was nice to find out that I wasn't too far off. Next, we're going to go ahead and draft a base standing collar. This is just something that's going to go straight up, but not gap around the back of your neck. So it means that it has to have a little bit of curve, because the bottom of your neck is usually a little bit wider than the top area of your neck, where it's at its narrowest. So I went ahead and drew a curve that looked about right. It just needs to start off from that center back seam at a straight line, and then curve up. And then I went ahead and drew a collar that was two inches wide the whole way across. I then double-checked the top measurement to see if I was close to what I needed. I was a little bit short, so I took out some of the curve and redrew that, which would lengthen the top. The less curved it is, the longer the top is going to be. And came up with that shape as my base standing collar, which I can adjust in lots of different ways for lots of different styles. I also, with this sort of shape, like to go ahead and cut it out as one single piece. The fold is so fidgety. I just like to go ahead and fold it over on the paper and trace it and cut it out, so the paper is precisely symmetrical. For the first style, I'm doing a crossed over front that has kind of gathered up the shoulders and gathered down at the waist, with a little bit of a standing collar and a very loose ruffle around the neckline. I'm doing this out of a silk crepe, so it's not going to be very structured. First thing I'm doing is extending the side, so that way I can gather this up in the shoulder seam, and that will also extend the sides at the bottom. And then I'm going ahead and drawing a diagonal line for the crossover. I chose the angle of this crossover based on where I wanted the opening of the neck to be, where the two pieces would cross over based on center front, essentially. Then, like I said, we're doing a very small standing collar. I wanted to make sure that I got the right length, so I marked where the shoulder seam would hit the collar, and then figured out where on the front I actually wanted the collar to start. I'm not making this a tall standing collar, I'm sort of easing it from nothing into a small standing collar. So I'm tracing out the bottom line, which I'm going to keep for that curve, and then I'll draw a new top line and sort of fade it out into the edges. I decided to cut this piece where the diagonal was actually on the straight of grain, rather than on the diagonal, just so it didn't stretch as much across the chest. This is something that I have always had an issue with any sort of wrap blouse or wrap dress. It tends to gap there. So I cut that on the straight of grain, and I went ahead and started gathering up all the pieces, like the ruffle, which I sort of cheated, because this fabric has a gorgeous selvage, so I am just using that for the edge of my ruffle and not having to roll him that horribleness, because silk crepe does not like to roll him. I did go ahead and reinforce one side of the standing collar with an interfacing, so that it would have a little bit more structure than the silk crepe could possibly give to it. But other than that, all of these layers are just single silk crepe. The front edge is faced with a straight strip, so it's nice and clean. The very bottom edge, I went ahead and gathered up and stitched it to a china silk ribbon. I could have put this on a drawstring, but that moves around too easily, and I just hate having to readjust how this is situated on a constant basis. I wanted it to be stationary and still and hold its place, so I decided to just go ahead and find the bottom edge in this silk ribbon to make that really nice and clean and simple. For the next design, it's going to be a very clean front style in a cotton batiste with a pleated ruffed collar. The front's going to have a few little decorative buttons and then actually fasten just from the bust down with hooks and eyes, so I angled out the neckline a bit, so that way it would actually gap at the neck. Same thing as before, using that same standard collar base, this one's just going to be a very small standing collar, so that way the pleated ruffle will fit nicely into that and deal with all of the raw edges. For pleats, I like to mark one line of the pleats, so that way it's not visible on the exterior. It's essentially the internal part of the pleat. I then press that line and fold it back over by eye. Your pleats are even if they look even, and that is the best way to treat knife pleats of any type. I did not put any reinforcement in this particular standing collar just because it is only half an inch, so the quarter inch seam allowance that I left on all of the pieces will pretty much take up all of that space of the standing collar, so there really was no reason to add that, and it would have been pretty bulky when I'm adding that in with all of the pleated fabric as well. The final design is sort of a waistcoat style and does overlap itself in front. I wanted to use the center back closure style again just to keep it nice and clean. So just like the silk crepe vesti, the angle of the front is very much based off of where I want the overlap to happen on that center front point, how far down from my neck. So I draw that angle out and then played around with what sort of angle I thought the cutaway style front would look good as. It just depends on how much you want it to overlap over that center front line. I also did a nice curve to the bottom edge, and then we moved on to the collar. This collar is a little bit awkward, the fact that I was not actually using the standing collar for this. I took the collar shape off of my antique, which was a slightly different shape. Because it is so tall, it's meant to cross past the chin, which means that it's sort of the opposite of the standing collar we did earlier, where it's supposed to get bigger as it gets towards the top. But I wanted it even bigger than the little lace version that I had, and pointier, so I extended the height so that way it folds over at the top, and will fold over a little bit more as it comes to the point, and sort of shaped out the side and the top so that way I could get a fairly severe point at that corner. I'm using a very stiff silk satin for this, but I will be lining it with a glazed cotton so that way it has a good amount of substance to it. Since I'm going to be doing bound buttonholes or welted buttonholes for this, I needed something that had some good structure to it, that way these buttonholes could actually be functional. The silk satin definitely has a lot of structure, but it would be nice to have the cotton behind it as well.