Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-1 — This is it

Yes, this time I am going to make a bija (a type of vest).

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-2

A bija is a very practical outer garment; it accentuates the muscles for slim people and slims down for fuller figures. When it's cold, it protects the front and back of the body; when it's hot… you can take it off.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-3 — Sketch

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-4 — The neckline of the outerwear was too narrow and uncomfortable, so I widened the neck circumference.

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I did not choose traditional Hanfu fabric. This color and pattern told me that it was the best choice for the bija.

82 yuan per piece.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-6 — The ties were replaced with more “modern” snap buttons.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-7 — After filling in the colors, it looks like this.

Start cutting the fabric.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-8 — Align the front placket patterns. Use the sides of the fabric to align the patterns, and leave enough seam allowance in the middle.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-9 — Align the two center front lines and cut the front placket.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-10 — The back piece did not have enough fabric for the pattern, so I did not make a center back line (okay, you can say I got the style wrong).

Many lines were drawn on the side seams. The innermost line was drawn according to the dimensions in the diagram. After drawing, I thought, “Isn't it too tight?” So I moved it out by 1 cm.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-11

I pinned the cut pieces on the dress form to check the effect. It looked so fat and bulky! The light blue collar also stood out too much, so I made the right collar dark blue with a light blue edge, which made it much more understated. I decided to change the design.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-12 — The cut pieces were changed back to the original design, which is a long, thin strip.

The lining fabric on the right was prepared in advance. (This time I knew to prepare the materials in advance.)

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-13

Stock from Singles' Day, regretting not buying more! The fabric is relatively thick, smooth on the front, and slightly matte on the back.

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Cut the front piece. The blue flower fabric is beautiful on both sides, and I hesitated for a long time about whether to make a lining. In the end, to highlight the fabric's high quality and avoid visible stitching, I decided to make a lining.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-15 — Cut the collar. The light blue edge is the reverse side of the fabric, 2.4 cm wide, with a 0.2 cm exposed edge.

Start sewing.

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First, sew the side and shoulder seams of the fabric and the lining. Then I noticed an exaggerated “pad shoulder” at the shoulders, so I lowered the shoulders by 1 cm.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-17 — After adjusting the shoulders, it fit much better.

Now sew the plackets and side seams of the two layers of fabric separately.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-18 — The side view. Fortunately, the pattern on the side slit matched up.

You can see that the sleeve cap is very deep, already below the bust line.

The sleeve caps of the clothes we usually wear are oval-shaped, with the arm passing through the middle.

However, Hanfu is a flat-structured garment. Referring to the concept in “The Three-Body Problem,” where a three-dimensional world is unfolded into a plane, we can understand that flat things take up more space.

Practical and Stylish: Ming Dynasty Blue Flower Bija Making-19 — This is a schematic diagram.

Let's continue…

The black line represents the sleeve cap of the clothes we wear. For ease of movement, this oval must be sufficiently loose.

The sleeve cap of Hanfu is equivalent to pulling the two red points on the black line up and down to their farthest positions, forming a flat sleeve cap (a single seam). This value is used as the minimum sleeve cap.