Waistcoat & Blazer Sewing Patterns

Tailoring has a way of sounding like a different discipline to dressmaking, when really it's the same skills applied more carefully. A waistcoat is the honest way in. It's small, it uses very little fabric, and it teaches you the things tailoring depends on: interfacing that supports rather than stiffens, seams pressed properly open, and a lining that lets the whole thing hang correctly. Make a good one and a blazer stops looking like such a leap.

Vikisews and Merchant & Mills anchor this collection, with Wardrobe by Me, Maison Fauve, Closet Core Patterns, Friday Pattern Company, Cashmerette and The Assembly Line alongside. The styles cover both ends: relaxed, workwear-influenced waistcoats and boxier blazers that skip the heavy tailoring, and sharper, more structured designs with proper canvas, welt pockets and set-in sleeves. Most are drafted for women, with a smaller number of men's and unisex designs.

Waistcoat or blazer?

Waistcoats are the more approachable make by some distance. No sleeves means no sleeve heads to ease in, the lining is simple, and the fitting is limited to the body. They also use little enough fabric that a mistake isn't expensive. Blazers ask more of you: sleeves, a collar and lapel, a full lining and, on the more structured designs, interfacing or canvas through the front. The relaxed, unstructured blazer patterns sit somewhere in between and are a reasonable bridge if you've made a waistcoat and want the next thing.

Interfacing and structure

This is what separates tailoring that looks made from tailoring that looks homemade. Fronts, lapels, collars and pocket openings all need support, and the weight you choose changes the whole character of the garment: too light and it collapses, too heavy and it reads as cardboard. A woven interfacing moves with a woven cloth and gives a softer, more natural result than a stiff non-woven. Test on a scrap of your actual fabric, fuse it, let it cool completely, then handle it, as it feels quite different once bonded.

What to make them in

These patterns want cloth with body. Wool suiting, tweed, flannel, cotton drill, twill, denim and heavier linen all work, and each gives a different result from the same pattern: a tweed waistcoat reads as country, the same one in denim reads as workwear. Lighter, drapier fabrics generally won't hold the structure these designs are drafted for. You'll want a lining fabric too, usually something smooth like viscose or acetate, so the garment slides on and hangs properly. Order samples of the outer and the lining together so you can check them against each other.

Related collections

For cloth, see wool, coating and jacketing and linen, plus lining fabrics and interfacing. For full outerwear, try coat and jacket patterns.