Gangster Girl Costume

Last year, my boyfriend and I decided to dress in a gangster / 20's theme for Halloween. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we decided to not go out, instead we just handed out some candy.
So he had his costume purchased and I had one that would work, because I could not decide what I really wanted to do yet. But I had in my mind a costume to make. There also just happened to be a black pinstripe fabric on the $1.97 shelf at the local Walmart.
Now I had purchased the fabric and then decided that it was too flimsy for what I had in mind and put it on the back burner for a while. Then I found this pattern when I was flipping through the costume section of the Simplicity catalogue (I really think that they have the best selection of costume patterns)View A was pretty close to what I had imagined (bottom right corner), but upon closer inspection I realized that the front buttons were decoration only. (there was a back zipper) I wanted my vest to have functional buttons, so that it didn't look like the cheap costumes that you can buy for Halloween.
So I decided to draft a new front piece. (What was I thinking! I don't know how to draft pattern pieces!) So I traced out half of the front piece, and added a button facing.

I still have the problem of the flimsy fabric though. So I went through the stash to see what I had to solve this problem, and I remembered some flannel curtain liners that I made last year to stop the drafts. And we have a winner! So I cut a layer of fashion fabric, a layer of lining and a layer of flannel. (this is also a bonus as Halloween can be quite cold in these parts) The dress is made from the flimsy pinstripe material and part of an old sheet.

After finishing up all the layers (I also fully lined the vest) I decided that I should bind the edges of the vest. I started out with white binding (as you can see on the front) but decided that I didn't like the look of that, so went with black binding on the rest. I am lazy and hate button holes, so hand sewed on large snaps to close the vest and added false buttons to the front for a double breasted look. (Looking at it now, I think that I have to make the white binding black as well!)

Now I have a set of costumes for my back-up this year! (Because a girl is always changing her mind!)