Saturday 28 November 2015

Hair! What is it good for?

I cried in a hairdressers on Thursday night.

 An undignified affair of watching in a mirror as my hair fell away, hoping against hope the final reveal wouldn't be what I was expecting. It was exactly what I was expecting. The issue isn't the cutting off of my hair, that I really couldn't give a fig about. It grows so quickly that a buzz cut would be pixie length in just over a month. No my issue was with the nature of my hair which every time I go to a hairdressers I hope they'll be able to fix.

You see it's incredibly fine. All it does is hang limp and collect grease. Honestly I should hook up with McDonalds and make my fortune. Some wise souls amongst you will tell me that I need to wash it less frequently, to you I say pffffffft. I cannot get through a day with unwashed hair without feeling absolutely vile.

This particular hairdresser did not show me the way. He just kept shrugging and telling me that it was very difficult as my hair is very fine; while a poster to the side of his head proclaimed the many ways thicker hair could be achieved. Partially I accept the blame due to the impossibility of making a silk purse out of a sows ear however surely as I walked in with the self same straight fine hair and proclaimed my hatred of it then it's possibly inadvisable to take straighteners to it? Again again wise souls will proclaim the benefits of straighteners for sharpening the edges of a cut. To those people I repeat pfffffft. My hair will do straight all on it's own, please I beg of you, make it do something else!

I'm lazy. Let's face it, it's true.

I realised this when I explained my hair styling routine to the salon manager who kindly took me upstairs to calm down. I wash my hair, I tie it in a ponytail then I turn the blowers in my car to full. Rinse repeat. I feel like I have missed a vital step in adolescence when all this shit is experimented with and a style developed. You make all those mistakes when you're 15 and then as you get older you refine until you are much more polished and together.

I missed all this due to being deeply uninterested. I'm still uninterested now but I still want the end result and will get very upset when it doesn't magically appear. The nice salon manager showed me lots of tricks to make my hair do what I was hoping it would. I then tried to recreate this the following day.

I cried again.

I remain hopeful though. I'm trying to learn and have bought many styling products which it appears are the required means to barnet bliss (I'm aware this will most likely led to me being broke and disappointed but...well I've no sensible answer to that). I even intend to go to bed with curlers and a scarf wrapped around my head. Cotton obvs as I've learnt this wicks away sweat and the natural oils of the hair. Afro hair should use silk in order to do the opposite. It's amazing the things you learn on Radio 4.

p.s curly haired girls who wish they could get their hair to do what mine does. I refuse to accept that we all want what we haven't got. It's just that everyone's hair is against them and that it's not paranoia if you're right.


Sunday 15 November 2015

Foolhardy fun











WARNING! You are about to look at a lot of pictures of ladies wearing not a lot. Do so at you own discretion and preferably not at work. :) 




I generally take ages to do anything. I have a very short attention span so will generally find what feels like a natural stopping point in any task (or half way through a fiddly job, whichever) in which to wander off and do something else. It also isn't helped by the fact that generally I am sewing in 15 minute chunks before I go to work. Projects therefore take time and my to do list gets longer and longer.

Turns out buying fabric is much more rapid than turning it into things, who knew?

My last two projects however have been exercises in working to short deadlines and binge sewing. The one I'll tell you about here was very blatantly my mouth writing cheques my body could questionably cash. Interesting side note, my spell check doesn't recognise cheques ah the young spell checkers of today, it's all paypal and contactless payments for them.

Anyway, so exercise in blatant foolhardyness is agreeing to make a bikini in just under a week. I have never made a bikini before but how hard could it be.....ah that hard. My friend and colleague is an emerging talent in the body building world, she lifts many many of the heavy things. She needed a costume for her theme piece and I love me a bit of dress up.




Initially we were going for  a Zena feel however she had a bit of a look around and it was going to be done a hundred times in her show. I therefore used my nerd powers to come with a character that looks badass but no one could accuse of being over dressed. Which is why we ended up with Kitana from Mortal Kombat. If you're saying 'who?' then you are further proof of how I massively misjudged the reference points of pretty much everyone else in the world. *sigh*.


I purchased a pdf bikini pattern from a Jodi Lane Designs on etsy. I went for the triangle top and v cut bottoms. The pattern turned out to be really quite good and the accompanying videos were very thorough however I'm used to a lot more information being included with my pattern like what fabrics will work best and which notions you need. It was at this point I started to have some doubts. Had I possibly bitten off a tiny bit more than I could chew.


The cutting went very smoothly due to my new rotary cutter. I managed to cut myself on it's very first use but that was always going to be par for the course. I need to work out a few of the kinks of using a rotary cutter including getting more maneuverable pattern weights than tins of tuna but on the whole I think that is the future. Everything was so gosh darn tiny! How could there be enough fabric to cover a human being?!? Sadly I have no photos of the construction stages as I was running much too tight for time.


Anyway so it came to stitch it together and this is where we come unstuck. I hate working with elastic, I can't seem to get the tension even. If anyone has any tips I'd be overjoyed to hear them as I would like to make some underwear again in the future. Fortunately I had enough fabric to make a couple of attempts at it which was handy as the first top I made was far far too small. Oh also this fabric if put under any strain ladders like a pair of tights. Fun times.


It's not perfect by any stretch and I accidentally got contrast rather than matching thread which means you can see every point where I've gone over and over the same spot to make that sucker stay. I'm trying to ignore this and focus on I made a bikini!


For the rest of the pieces I made a mask out of same fabric and a jersey lining tied on with some black cord in a similar style to a surgical mask. The skirt is made in a similar fashion to the straps by wrapping thicker elastic in the fabric and zig zag stitching it down with two panels of fashion fabric wrapped over the front and back. The bladed fan is just plastic dinner knives stuck to a fan. What? I was working on a deadline with the resources I had. I think she makes it work though, don't you?


Saturday 7 November 2015

Pants!

Ok so that was childish. I'm English so my title would suggest I'm talking about undercrackers when really I'm talking about trousers. What can I say, growing up is overrated.

Do you think you should iron your trousers before you put them on the internet? Nah
The trousers I'm talking about are the Sew Me Something Portia Trousers. On my pre-make googling I didn't find many people had made them already. There was only one lady who made them in a really quite funky tartan (who is waaaaaay better at fly fronts than I am).

I don't like skinny jeans because, as mentioned previously, I got a lot of junk in my trunk. I think skinny jeans make me look like I'm wearing comedy jodhpurs al la this guy. So I'm all about the bootcuts, flares and wide legs. My particular favourite being the wide leg so when I spotted this pattern in a magazine it looked ideal.

I first off started with my wearable muslin fabric which is an excellent example of why you should actually bother to read the description rather than rely on the colour you think the picture is. Monitors can lie, this is a life lesson. If you really want a gold star you should order a swatch but who's got time for that with a quick muslin project?

It's pinstripe suiting in beige (but the picture looked grey to me) from Minerva which is going for a song and on sale now. It works fine for a wearable muslin but the only thing to consider is it's incredibly thin. It can only be worn with beige underwear as it's less VPL and more 'I can see your pants'.

                                                        

The instructions are a little frustrating as generally they're comprehensive until it gets to how to do a fly zipper. Unfortunately the pictures and instructions are not very clear on this at all. I was never sure which side of the fabric or zip was being referred to. If you've never done one before I strongly recommend you go to this tutorial.
First attempt at a fly front. I went a bit nuts with the bar tack.
Inside first attempt at fly zip.
Second attempt. Getting better.

Other than that it's pretty much smooth sailing. I love the line of the pockets as it allows me to indulge my love of anally retentive top stitching. The pictures that come with the pattern did give my some concerns that the crotch would pouch out a bit. I think that's a. to do with posture, b. to do with fabric choice, c. not enough of a concern to me.



For my next pair I went for again another Minerva fabric but this time a Jumbo corduroy available here. This is navy blue.... I thought it was black. Don't roll your eyes I'm not going to learn any time soon. It's a lovely fabric but I think it has a tendency to grow as both items I made out of it (these trousers and a yet to be blogged Moss skirt) both needed taking in by a considerable amount at the waist.

   

With this pair I decided to add a bit of colour by making the pocket insides with a quilting cotton. I can't remember what I'd ordered that for but I remember there being less than I expected so it sat on my shelf until an appropriate accent use could be found. I also bought an edge stitch foot so it's fun to play with that. I also got to play with my overlock foot which was very useful for the corduroy as that stuff frays like a mo fo. Still umming and ahhing as to whether I want to go the whole hog and get an overlocker though. They intimidate me, what do you think?


 I love these trousers. Love them. Since I was student and spotted a girl working behind my local student bar in a pair of heavily flared black cords I've wanted a pair. Now that dream is a reality.

Also I can cover my whole shoe with my trousers and look like I don't have feet.

It's the little things really.



p.s I link to things because that's what I used/liked. I am not being paid to do anything and my opinions are my own.

Sunday 1 November 2015

Playing catch up

1st of August.

The first of flipping August! That was the last time I posted anything. That's a three months ago. Good grief you lazy Humbug get it together.

Got a lot to catch you up on to be honest. Biggest news is that I got engaged. Yep fella is going to become Mr. Fella. I will be Mrs Humbug, that's how it works yes? I have a plan in my head to make my wedding dress and three bridesmaid dresses. As I plan to get married early 2017 come back to me then when I may have flipped and decided everyone is going in Primani.

Wanna see the ring? Course you want to see the ring.

Past, present and future.

Other exciting news is I did a couple of tutorials for Minerva Crafts. As I buy the majority of my fabric for them I keep on to be on their Blogger Network. What can I say I'm a fan girl. I suppose it would help if I blogged more than once a quarter though.... Anyway that gig is fully booked up currently so here is the next best thing. Here's a tutorial for a Pom Pom Garland and another for the Heart shaped pom pom maker. Lastly here's a bit of a Q&A that I did. Looking through the others it seems everyone else has taken photos of their fantastic makes, whereas I took photos of my sewing machine, because no one's seen one of those before. Well done Captain Innovative.

I do have a few new ideas which hopefully should be coming together in the next couple of months so stay tuned.

I've made quite a few things which I will try to get myself in the habit of posting on a semi regular basis in order to clear the backlog. I also have a large number of exciting projects on at the minute which fall into the 'Do you know how to make a .......  Dunno, never done one before so let's find out' category.

Here's some preview pics

















Saturday 1 August 2015

Sometimes winging it is not the way forward

The downside to an attitude of haphazard optimism is that sometimes your mouth writes cheques that your skills can't cash. I lost a little bit of confidence recently from diving headlong into a couple of projects that didn't pay off the way I wanted or in some cases at all.

Look at those wonky ass buttons that I had to place sooo far out to reduce the sack factor.
Look at the bonus detail. Look at it!
First is the birthday shirt for the fella. I picked the Negroni shirt pattern by colette patterns to make him a linen shirt as he bought one last summer and wore the living daylights out of it. Got some linen-ette (it was in a basket, I can't really vouch for the true nature of its fibers) material from Abakhan with a discolouration to one of the selvage that I wanted to use to make a trim along the bottom of the sleeves. Was quite proud of that little bit of material manipulation let me tell you.
Like the collar. Would prob leave off the loop next time.






Obviously it doesn't pull like that on him as he, unlike my stunt double Olive, doesn't have a cracking pair of sweater bunnies

The fella is tall and slim but I'm doing my best to feed him up so I added extra to accommodate according to his measurements. The construction all went to plan but then I came to putting it on him and well I may as well have just cut armholes in a sack with potatoes written on it. The problem I have is I honestly don't know where I went wrong. I measured him and compared it to pattern measurements, maybe the next step would be to measure the pattern pieces but I guess I trusted them not to fib to me.

I had to save her. She has wool on her!
The second confidence blaster was again an issue with fitting the bodice on a By Hand London Flora dress. This one I know exactly where I went wrong and it comes back to my tendency towards reckless abandon. I had my first go at a full bust adjustment or a FBA if you will. Now as most patterns are graded for a B cup and I'm.... well I'm really not you'd be surprised I hadn't done one before. That's because I'd generally whack a couple of inches to the side seams and call it good. This is how I end up with a waist that I could get another person in there with me. I need to sort out how to do a FBA as I've also bought the pattern for a By Hand Anna dress that I want to make for a wedding.

I will get my head round the FBA! 




















I even did two muslins (test go on a cheap fabric) and despite this not fitting correctly still thought 'meh it'll come good in my precious pretty fabric.





         *Spoiler alert* 




       It didn't.






When you can't fit the bodice, make a waistband and call it a skirt.
Making leftovers right. 





















Imagine instead that Madonna in her cone bra days had created one with telescopic properties and that she pressed a button which caused said cones to eject about a foot out from her body. This is the look my adjustments left me to rock.


Quite proud of this little shabby chic fix for accidentally
cutting through the main skirt
Despite the fact I know it was poor planning and hasty adjustments with no basis in any real world geometric shape that caused the problem I still felt my confidence knocked. I hate wasting fabric, I just can't subscribe to the mentality that every mistake is new lesson learnt and therefore nothing is wasted. I wish I could but then I would also probably have the tidy mindset that believes that there is such a thing as left over wine to use in cooking and I'm not sure I can live in that world.

From there I had to improvise. I kept the skirt panels and popped on a waistband. Even after I accidentally cut through the main body of the skirt when trimming the seams I knew I'd come too far to let her go.

So from there I turn to Tilly and the Buttons. Her patterns are simple and I know they look nice. I need to get my sewjo back. I've already turned out one coco top that I'm pleased with so that's helping. A ruffle skirt in My little pony fabric also helps...so does the left over wine.


p.s the less said about inserting a zip into a fray-tastic african wax print fabric the better.

Sunday 31 May 2015

Simplicity Star Sewist Entry

Good afternoon Limbos and Ginjoints.

I write to you today with my entry for the Simplicity Star Sewist competition. To give a little background Simplicity are running a competition where they are sending entrants one of their patterns to put their own creative stamp on. I did wonder if my idea was taking my own stamp too far, then I thought well they did say there were no rules....

There are three options: a shift dress, a vintage top or a skirt. I oped for the vintage category and went for the top which is available here. As mentioned previously I had done a dry run of this pattern where I'd followed the pattern as instructed....kinda. What's one little fastening alteration between friends?

This is the pattern illustration...


and this is what happens when I go hack-happy.




As this is a 60s era pattern I wanted to stay in that era and for reasons best known only to me when I think of 60s I picture monochrome, gathered sleeves and mesh. I also picture heavy eyeliner, a beehive hairdo and baby pink lipstick. This may or may not have happened or I'm just really influenced by a fancy dress view of the 60s. Either way that's the route I chose to go.

Oooo arty

I had considered making the main body in scuba fabric however being unable to find any in the fabric shop I happened to be in at the time I went for a heavy weight jersey. I kept the mesh though because I'd never sewn with it before and it's always a good idea to use something that you utterly can't estimate the outcome of when you're looking to impress. Right?

It was naughty so we made it stand in the corner and think about what it did.

So alterations made to the pattern:

  • Cut the pattern in two below the sleeve to make a mesh yoke
  • Extended the sleeves to the wrist
  • Gathered the sleeves into the cuff
  • Cut several sizes below my own to get rid of the majority of the ease
  • Got rid of the facings on the neckline
  • Kept the additional couple of inches to the length because of my long torso and aversion to midriff baring 
Look at the top stitching! Look at it!

Speaking of the neckline it was going to be bias bound with the jersey however as the neckline is a little high (I forgot to lower it from the dry run) and the mesh a bit stretchy so it created a distinctly messy trim which, to add insult to injury, was trying to garrote me. I decided therefore to just cut the whole thing off and leave the neckline raw allowing it to fold back on itself in a slightly cowl like fashion.


Lastly a few words about the photography. You may notice the dress form is not my usual stunt double but is in fact borrowed from my best friend (it's so darn skinny!). The top is not so ridiculously low cut as it appears, the dress form is just a lot smaller than me. You will also notice the photos are not my usual slightly rubbish fare due to the assistance of her husband who is an excellent photographer and showed me how to get the best out of my little camera. He said many words on the matter of how to make the photos presentable many of which I recognised to be from the English language but lost me completely. 

The gold light makes me think of alien invasions, not sure why


What I did take away was the need to make a reflective surface for light bouncing (that's the technical term yeah?). If you need me I'll be in the garage playing with tinfoil and gold spray paint which will also be helpful when I move into my 70s glamrock phase.

Thursday 7 May 2015

On cutting yourself some damn slack

I don't know how many times over the years I have said these words or words to this effect to people. Watched people overload themselves with demands and expectations then buckle under the pressure. It does you no good and you win no prizes (unless you're training for the Olympics in which case have at it, go for gold!) There is no point when it is all finished and you've completed everything asked of you; it just keeps stepping up a level getting more and more. It's like Space Invaders really.

Day 1
Isn't this very sage and wise advice? Don't I sound like some benign old spirit spilling my drops of wisdom? Well also acknowledge that it comes from an absolute hypocrite. Yes you should take a break and go easy on yourself but me? Well I have cracked the code and therefore will be able to beat the system entering the mothership if I can complete just. one. more. task.

Day 2

Nonsense. Absolute gibberish. This conclusion occurred to me in the participation of Me Made May. Now there is nothing wrong with the challenge as it is, in fact I think it's a great idea. The problem is with me. There are no rules apart from the ones you set yourself and really the one I set myself isn't unrealistic... on its own but taken in combination with the other obligations I hold it becomes overwhelming.

Day 3
First off I realised I flipping hate taking a photo of myself every day. It's been 7 days and I've already skipped 3. Again this is not a rule of participating yet I seem to think it is making the process unnecessarily angsty for myself. I also don't quite think I'm there with the 5 days of wear without resorting for a number of days to a handmade scarf or hat. I know that this officially is quite acceptable but to me, for me, it feels like a cop out.

Day 4
So unless I resort to panic sewing (AGAIN Humbug did you listen to what Zoe was saying at all?!) to knock up a few more garments it won't get done. I realised this wasn't going to happen when I sat down to stitch in a sleeve and thought I really don't want to do this right now. I refuse to turn my hobby into a chore so I need to change my thinking. There are some half finished pieces that I can be working on but this will be to an as and when schedule.

Any future modelling will be carried out by my stunt double Olive.
So I'm going to reconsider my pledge thus:  'I, Miss Amy of Handmade by Humbug, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '15. I endeavour to wear as many of my me mades for whatever days I feel like for the duration of May 2015 and just chill the heck out. I will use this as an exercise to find which me mades I like to wear and purge those I don't. I will not be taking sodding daily photos.'

This is just a first step that can be built on next year. No pressure.

What I'm choosing to spend my time doing at the moment



Monday 4 May 2015

I did some mother trucking knitting

I did it! I knit something!



I get the majority of people who see the things I make will think, so? You knit lots of things. Well first off that's crochet and second it took me so bloody long to get my head round this. I don't know why. There seemed to be some blockage in my brain that went 'nope' whenever anyone tried to teach me.

I only had one temper tantrum and frogged the whole damn thing, that's positively mature adult for me. There's a couple of places where I dropped or picked up stitches but not massively and blocking hides a multitude of sins.

This time I was determined though. This time I was doing it. I think what kicked it off was seeing that you start with the same sliding knot as you do in crochet. I can do that, so I can do this I kept telling myself. The pattern is Wheat from Tincanknits who do an excellent basics set of learner patterns. I plan to go through all of the lessons which will result in a scarf, cowl, socks, jumper and cardi.

Each level has two alternatives for example you can make the scarf or a blanket. As there is no way on earth I'd have the patience for a whole blanket I went with scarf. You can make both or just the one and I've chosen one at each level apart from the last as I would like both a jumper and a cardi.

I think I'm really getting this though and I've already cast on my next project (get me, 'casting on', no big deal). On circular needles none the less though I wish someone had warned me about cheap circular needles. I snapped my first Pony set almost straight out of the packet. A needles a needles a needle or so I thought. Second purchase of Knitpro interchangeable going muuuuuuuuch smoother.

Last a word on photography. If I'm going to do this I need decent photos to show the goods. Only thing is I'm crap at photography and what's worse not overly fascinated by learning it. It's a means to an end but the process doesn't exactly fill me with the warm and fuzzys. It's how I imagine most people feel about sewing; they want the pretty dress at the end, not so bothered how it got there.

My good friend and photography whizz Denny has been trying to teach me the basics. I'm a bad student as I took these photos by just pressing all the buttons which is definitely NOT what he taught me. Hopefully when I go visiting at the end of the month I'll leave with some rather more defined skills or he'll knock my head off in frustration. One or the other.


Thursday 30 April 2015

Twofer

Hello there Long jumps and Gravy Granules

What I'm showing you today should be my Cyprus blouse. I bought the fabric in Cyprus as I'm liking the idea of picking up fabric while on my holidays to make a wearable souvenirs. Sadly it's origins will be overshadowed by it's purpose. Ooo that makes it sound like a tale of epic redemption.

...Pity it's not really.

This is the twofer blouse so called because it meets two purposes (stupid like a fox!) Firstly this is my first attempt at the Simplicity's Star Sewist competition. I'm entering in the Vintage category which is for the Simplicity 1364 blouse. As I intend to go hack happy on the pattern I read some very sensible advice that you should make up a pattern as intended first to get an idea of it before you go changing it. Learn the rules before you break them.

Excellent advice I thought. Very wise, very sage. I almost even followed it. I'm not going to count the changes I made to length as that's a fairly standard change I have to make to everything. I'm tall and making my own clothes means I can lift my arms without exposing my midriff to the world.





I did however also changed the fastening. I'd like to say that because my second purpose for this blouse was as it was to be my entry for Lucky Lucille's Spring for Cotton that I made that change to be in keeping with the guidelines. Basically to make a vintage or vintage inspired piece using only cotton. It wasn't because, full disclosure, I used 100% polyester thread throughout.


It was because I didn't read the notions until I'd started work and I hadn't realised I needed a zip. I hate zips. I do however love buttons and have a mah-hoo-sive bag of them. As there is a tad too much ease in the pattern (the difference between your measurements and the clothing measurements is the ease e.g. a baggy top has loads and leggings don't) for my liking I folded each of the center backs in on themselves an inch to make button bands. As the fabric is quite fine I interfaced underneath.


I actually really love how this blouse turned out. I think I want a few more like this as I think they'd be excellent to work in. Nice high neck, sleeves to my elbows, long enough. So I'm going to do what I very rarely do and trace out rather than cut the pattern down (I know I know, I don't trace. Bite me) when I make my Simplicity competition entry. As I'm planning to make it in a stretchy material I don't want very much ease at all so I'm going down a size or two. So far the Burda tracing paper and I have not got on but third times a charm right?

Also lastly tomorrow is the beginning to Me Made May. I have pledged to wear an item of handmade by me clothing every day for a month. Rather than blog everyday, cause ain't nobody got time for that, I'm just going to do a weekly round up each Saturday. Might do a daily post on Instagram we'll see.

Saturday 25 April 2015

Dearest Daddio

Good morning labradoodles and gyroscopes

I'm gonna tell you about my Daddy Dearest. The big T, Father Christmas, Captain Birdseye etc etc. Last year I got it into my head that I wanted to make him a shirt. He's an ex-sailor (old sailors don't die they just get a little dinghy) so I wanted it to be nautical.


        
        This was the result. 






Look at this pocket. Look at it! Look at the lovely top stitching. I am still now impressed when I can make a line of stitching go visibly straight. It's not so long ago that I would generally tell people I'd been drinking when they looked at my decidedly wobbly stitching. My main question to sewists was how do you make the damn thing go straight?!?! 
Not pattern matched. Bite me. 

This man is a massive inspiration, role model, ghost-of-Christmas-yet-to-come for me. I want to make him things because I want him to know he is worth the time and effort to make something for. This year he asked me to make another shirt for his birthday. His one request (other than could I make the pockets a little bigger) was to make it as bright as I could manage. 


Obviously I am a poor judge of colour so I went to the Twitters to request the suggestions of a number of fabric shops that I like. This technicolor cotton was the winner. Sometimes you need to do a little saving my Dad from himself so I also decided to add colour block contrasts just to tone everything down slightly, very slightly. 

Eye pop and lock for the win!

He loves this shirt. We had gone out for tea in a pub with very over the top decor so I quite like the disco lord of the manor look he's got going on here. I have shown a number of people this shirt because when you've done something this extreme you wanna show people in a fit of giddy giggles. Some say it's hideous some think it's fun. Don't give a crap. He likes it. 

As always there are some slight flaws that I try my best not to get uptight about. For some reason I keep ending up with about a cm difference in the button bands at the bottom. Possible because I have to keep putting one on upside down as I seem to forget how mirror images work to get the pattern going the right way though I'm not sure how this would cause a difference in length. I did pattern match the right side button band but then realised that would be on the underneath and I didn't have enough fabric to pattern match the left one. Damn it! Ah well it's a busy pattern. 

His next request is a nautical waistcoat. I keep seeing trailers for re-runs of Pie in the Sky where Richard Griffiths rocks a lot of waistcoats. Obviously my Dad is more svelte but I do quite like the idea of a day wear waistcoat. Maybe in this or this? What do you reckon. What shall we dress Dapper Dad up in next, I'd love to know your thoughts?