How to make a DB style Waistcoat

 

 

Waistcoats are incredibly useful, but if you have the sort of shape which make wearing waistcoats for men unsuitable you are in a bit of a fix, because waistcoats made for women, if they exist at all, are decidedly sub-standard.  They are too skimpy, they have no pockets, they don’t open in the front (they are vests rather than waistcoats), and don’t even start me on the materials used and workmanship expended.  For a while I tried to circumvent these disadvantages by surgically altering men’s waistcoats and wear them, but the results were not encouraging, so I finally decided a few years ago to make my own.

 

Anyway.  I am writing this post, because one of my favourite colleagues waylaid me this morning to admire my waistcoat (the orange one) and insisted I tell her where I bought it.  Earlier this week another colleague couldn’t believe it when I told her that I had personally manufactured the long pink one, mainly, I suspect, on account of the beautiful large mother-of-pearl buttons (large and small ones alternating) which adorn this particular garment.  I know I am bragging here, but I have had so many enquiries as to where I bought my waistcoats that I feel the time has come for setting the record straight and providing instructions for making this useful knitwear.

 

I am not a knitting instructor, so assume you know how to do basic knitting and crocheting (say a scarf or pot holder).  These waistcoats look fancy, but are dead easy if you think things out first and plan ahead.  I am size 10/12, and will use that size as an example.  But please do not just follow it, even if this is your size.  Every yarn is different, and everyone knits with a different tension, so what is perfect for me may not work for you.  I am going to tell you how to create your own perfect pattern, rather than just provide my own.

 

First decide what material you want your waistcoat to be.  I have produced about a dozen waistcoats these last few years, mainly from wool but also from cashmere, baby alpaca, and cotton.  I can’t wholeheartedly recommend baby alpaca, the one I used sheds and pills like mad, but it certainly is heavenly soft.  Maybe the pilling will stop after a few washings.  My point is, the instructions below will work with any yarn.

 

How much yarn do you need?  This depends on the size of garment you want to produce, the thickness of the yarn, and the tension of your knitting.  If you knit very tightly and leave no little holes in your knitting you will need more than if you knit loosely.  I tend to make waistcoats which are reasonably body-hugging and go half way over my bum.  I use wool size 4 and knit with regular tension (so I am told).  I need between 400 and 500 grams of wool.

 

I recommend before you do anything else, find a knitted garment that fits you exactly as you would like the waistcoat to fit you.  This could be a cardigan, pullover, waistcoat, or even a dress, and will serve as a model.  Measure this garment to see how much square-footage of knitting you need to produce.  Start at the back.  For myself, I measure 20 inches wide and 24 inches high.  20x24=480.  Since you also have a front, multiply by 2, giving you almost 1,000 square inches.  Of course the front has the V-neck so needs a bit less, but you will need some yarn to knit the pockets.

 

Now go to a haberdashery and buy one ball of a yarn they have a lot of.  The idea is, you take the ball home, knit a tester to determine how much you need, and then go back to the shop to buy more of your chosen yarn.  If you are a knitter you will already know that it is crucial to make sure that all your yarn balls are from the same colouring lot – if the lot number is different the shade of the colour will be different, and believe me it shows!  That’s why it is important to buy as much wool as you need, if you come back two weeks later the store may not have the same colour lot any more.

 

Now you cast on 20 stitches and knit about 20 straight rows.  When I do this I get a piece the size of 3.5 x 2.5 =8.75 inches.  When you measured your garment you discovered that you need to produce 1000 square inches, and 1000 : 8.75 gives you 115, ie you need 115 times the amount of yarn you have just used to knit the 3.5 x 2.5 to knit your waistcoat.  Not you can either unravel the piece and measure the length of yarn it took to knit it and multiply this by 115.  Or you can go by weight, ie weigh the knitted piece and multiply by 115.  Let’s say you get 450 grams, which means you need 9 balls of yarn (they usually are sold in 50gr units).  If you are paranoid, like me, you buy one or two extra balls, just to be on the safe side.  Incidentally, you may want to use the tester knitting as the basis for one of the pockets!

 

Now you have the yarn and needles and are ready to start.  You cast on as many stitches as you decided you need – for me it is 100.  Cast them on, using needles one size smaller than your yarn size (needle 3 for yearn 4), to get a tighter hem.  For the first inch or two, do one knit one purl, or even two knit two purl.  Then switch to basic straight knitting and to the regular knitting needles (needle size 4 for yarn size 4).  Now knit until you get to the armpit.

 

In my experience I use exactly one quarter of the yarn for the back up to the armpit, so I always knit that part first.  That way I know whether I have enough yard to finish the waistcoat.  If I bought a bit too little, I can make the waistcoat a bit shorter.

 

Now you have to figure out how to do the hole for the arms.  I did it by using my model garment.  For me, if I cast off 4 stitches in the first row, then 3 stitches, then 2, and then 6 times 1, I get an indentation just right for me.  I had to experiment to find this out, by laying my knitted indentation onto the model garment and see whether I needed to cast off more or fewer stitches in each row.  Since this is the back, obviously you cast off on each side.  Once I finished casting off for the armholes I am left with 70 stitches on my needle.

 

Now you continue to knit straight rows until the back is about as high as is comfortable.  Remember, you will add a crocheted rim to the armholes, and this will reduce them somewhat, so do make them nice and large.  Also, these waistcoats are made to wear over other garments, so it is nice to have enough space in the armholes.  Using my example, I aim for 10 to 12 inches from the start of the armhole to the top of the waistcoat.

 

When you are just a few rows from the top, start shaping it.  You need to do two things; shape the shoulders, and shape the back.  You cast off for the shoulders and the back in the same rows!  I cast off the stitches for the back and those for the shoulders in three sections.  For each shoulder I have 21 stitches, so I cast them off 3x7, starting at the side where the armholes are.  This leaves me 28 stitches for the back, which I cast of 10 on each side and 8 in the middle.  Please note that this results in a very high neck.  If you prefer a lower neckline, you can start casting off stitches for the back before you cast off the stitches for the shoulder.

 

Now you are ready to do the two front pieces.  Since they will get a crocheted border they can be a bit narrower then the back, so I cast on 46, rather than 50, stitches for each front section.  For the hem and the arm-indentations do to the front what you did to the back, remembering that you are dealing with two different sides – ie in one you cast off while on the knit side, in the other while on the purl side.  When you start to cast off for the armholes, also cast off one stitch every other row on the side opposite to the arm – this will create the V-neck line.  If you cast off in every line, you will run out of stitches and get an opening which will be a V at the bottom and a tunnel at the top.  You will continue to cast off for the V-neck after you finished casting off for the armhole!  When you have as many stitches left on the needle as you used for each shoulder – for me 21 – you stop casting off for the V-neckline and just knit straight rows until the front peace is as long as the back piece, and then you cast off the shoulder-stitches to mirror what you did for the back.

 

Now you can sew the three pieces together, at the shoulders and on the two sides, resulting in a garment that looks like a waistcoat, but not quite finished.  Now it is time to switch from knitting to crocheting!

 

If you knit the edge of a waistcoat it will be a bit floppy, and the waistcoat will look untidy.  And knitting buttonholes is awkward.  So I decided to crochet the armpits and the edge of the waistcoat, and this is the touch that makes my waistcoats special and original.  I use the basic crochet stitch used for making potholders and such like.

 

When crocheting onto knitting you need to keep in mind that knitting has a different tension/structure than crocheting.  It is easy to end up with a crocheted border which will be either too big or too small.  The first line you crochet is the most important, do take your time and if necessary unravel and start again.  Frequently lay down the garment flat and make sure the crocheting is right for the knitting.  If the crocheting pulls the knitting out of shape you need to reduce the number of stitches you have made into the knitting.  If the knitting appears to be in any way wrinkled vis-à-vis the crocheting you need to take up additional stitches.  It is difficult to describe this exactly, but once you get started you will know what I mean.  Don’t be disheartened – I had to unravel my borders quite a few times before I finally got the hang of it.

First do the armholes.  I start at the bottom and work my way around about 5 or 6 times.  When ever I am at the bottom part, the 6 stitches before and after the exact bottom stitch, I tighten my crocheting.  Instead of pulling through twice, I just pull though once, which results in a closer and narrower border.  This makes the garment more comfortable to wear.  Also, do not crochet into the hole at the very bottom – ie miss out one stitch.  This will reduce the border a little each time, and helps to shape it.

 

For the central border, I start at one bottom end, crochet my way up to the neck, around the neck, and down the other side.  One both sides of the neck, where the seams of the back and front section are, miss out one crochet stitch, as per the armholes – this shapes the border and makes the waistcoat fit more snugly.  At the bottom of the other side, turn around and crochet your way back up the garment again.  You will notice that the armholes, where you crochet in a circle, have a nice knobbly pattern on the outside and a smooth pattern on the inside (if you did it correctly!).  But the central border will look different, although you are using the same basic crochet stitch, because you are working not in a circle, but are going backwards and forwards.

 

After you have done about five rows, make some buttonholes.  Their size depends on the size of the buttons you want to use.  I tend to use about one inch mother-of-pearl buttons which I buy second hand at antiques markets.  To accommodate them, I leave 5 stitch holes.  Starting at the bottom of the border, I crochet maybe half an inch to an inch.  Then I crochet 5 loops – I don’t crochet into the border, I just create a 5 loop section.  Then I count 5 holes in the border into which I would usually plunge my crochet hook.  Into the 6^th hole I crochet again.  Then I crochet another 10 stitches/holes, and repeat the looping, until I arrive at the start of my V-neck.  Now I continue my crocheting up the neck and around it and down the other side.  I turn and crochet up again and go around the neck and now I encounter the first 5 loop section.  I crochet into these loops!  This makes beautiful buttonholes.  Since the buttonholes should be in the middle of the border, I knit another five rows on top of them and then I stop.

 

Now all that remains is to make two pockets and sew them onto the waistcoat, and to add the buttons.  I tend to knit the pockets and crochet around them, or sometimes just crochet on top of them – just suit yourself.  Once you have finished your waistcoat, wash it in hot water, wring out, roll into a towel, leave for ten minutes, roll into a second towel, leave for ten minutes, and hang up on a clothes hanger to dry.  The process of washing and drying on a hanger will go a long way towards evening out any irregularities in your knitting.  Dry it with the buttons closed, and while the garment is drying yoy may also need to pull the border a little, in case it is smaller than the knitted part of the garment. 

 

This is rather a lot of writing for just a simple waistcoat, but it took me quite a while to figure all this out and personally I find the instructions one can buy not terribly helpful.  They tend not to mention an awful lot of things!

 

Once you have made one of these waistcoats you will find that they are really very easy to make, and look much fancier than they really are.  They are perfect with scarves, of course, and very versatile.  In winter wear them with cardigans, in spring/autumn by themselves, in summer unbuttoned. 

 

I found the cotton one I made for La Bourboule especially handy while taking treatments.  You are sitting on a stool, water dripping into your sinuses, and need a handkerchief – your waistcoat pockets are full of them!  You need to store your eyeglasses, but not too far away – your waistcoat pockets are deep and user friendly!  You are a little chilly walking to the Grand Thermes at 8 am – your waistcoat keeps you warm.  And combined with a shirt and scarf it looks very dressy, much better than the sweatshirts and such like people usually wear on these occasions.  When you finish your ablutions and the weather has warmed up, you open your waistcoat and let it hang loose – you are cool yet still look good.  And because it is cotton it doesn’t mind getting wet! 

I am currently knitting a purple one for La Bourboule, the solitary beige one I took last time got a bit boring in the three weeks I have there!