Finished the vest started last month...wait...no...I need puns...so...um...The Vest is Yet to Come...?

Late last year, I did a cloth-for-sewing-doll-clothes trade with AsterKurayami, who sent an interesting assortment of cloth scraps from her Aunt's interior decorating projects.  Most of what she sent were doll-appropriate cottons, but she did send a few light upholstery weight fabrics as well, and some of them really caught my interest.  My favorite pieces weren't entirely small, and I thought for a while of using them to make zippered pouches, and was almost ready to do that, when...hmm...how about a patchwork vest?



I pretty much wore vests throughout all of the early 1990s, and the whole idea of VEST is still very intertwined with that era for me, so I wondered if I could make something that didn't immediately make me think of high school.  I have some vest patterns that are much more fitted than what was fashionable in the early 1990s, like the McCall's M5887 I decided to use.  I didn't want to colorblock (TOO 1990s!  TOOOO 1990s!), so I made up quick patchwork pieces that were just big enough for the pattern pieces.  I used two fabrics from the trade--the jacquard and the floral print--and two from my stash, which included a solid that had a few yards of, so I'd have the option to make a coordinating skirt if I liked the finished vest enough.

I started sewing on the Singer Stylist 478, to sort of remind myself that it's a perfectly serviceable machine and that I could sell it without the guilt associated with Stylists by the sewing repair groups online.  (It's been on Craigslist for a while with no interest, though.)  When I ran out of bobbin thread, I switched to the Coronado, since it really needs attention to figure out where it could use work (and it looks like I need to fiddle with tension, since it loops horribly--but sporadically--on the bottom of the stitch.  'course, I still haven't put a felt disk under the thread spool, and wouldn't it be lovely if that were all it needed...?)  The vest looks fine, as long as you don't examine the underside of the top stitching on the edges.  And then I finished it on the Necchi, because I know where all its dials and levers and such should be to use the buttonholer.  (But I didn't use all my machines!  Since the vest is lined, nothing was serged...)

I can't decide if the finished vest has a Steampunk look or not... (it certainly has a lot more brown than anything else in my wardrobe, and I recall a friend's comments about how so many Steampunk ensembles seemed to be made from couch cloth...)

I concede that there are problems, but nothing that would prompt strangers to ask if I made it, so that's good.  And I still haven't decided if I want to make a coordinating skirt from that solid dark purple (aubergine?) cloth.  I have 1 7/8 yd of left, and it's 60" wide, so there are lots of possibilities.  Any ideas?