Made by Amanda

Most people who know Brandon would vote this the least likely vintage pattern that he would want made for him. I was totally joking when I asked him if he wanted me to make it for him. But when you look past the belts, pants tucked into boots, and the icky bare chest and chain (or turtle-neck, they're equally bad), what this is is a pair of coveralls. And he had been needing a new set of coveralls, it turned out.

So I made a few minor modifications to make it look less like an outfit from Saturday Night Fever and to make it more suitable for mechanic work: left the flaps off of the pockets, reduced the length of the collar tips and the flare of the legs, and left slits in the side seams so that my husband can reach into his pants pockets when he's wearing the coveralls. Also left the cuffs off of the sleeves, just finished them with a narrow hem.

It was a beast to make, actually. The denim was really stiff and there was lots of it, and I had quite a time getting the zipper in/front facing attached. The long straight seams and the sleeves were easy, of course. I used heavy duty thread, and was really impressed with my sewing machine, which handled the denim well.

Here is the finished product, put to use immediately:




The pattern was a size or two large, which I figured was a plus, since it doesn't look like it was originally meant to be worn over a full set of clothes. The only problem is that the torso still could use a few inches of length to allow the kind of reach that might be necessary in mechanic work. I'm foreseeing a ripped-out armpit in the future. He also wants me to retroactively put in a set of back pockets.

I worked on the pants for my mini-wardrobe today. It's going pretty good, although I had a few duh moments when reading the instructions. I think the Burdastyle instructions were translated out of another language (I think Burda is a German company) and some of the terms aren't translated exactly as I'm used to them. The back pocket pleats had me totally confused, and mine don't look like the ones on the model on the Burdastyle site. After I finished them, I looked at the instructions and their diagram made perfect sense. If I'd followed the instructions instead of trying to figure it out from the pleat arrows and lines on the pattern piece, I would have had no problem.