Apple Vest

I am genuinely getting close to the last of the apple print...but I'm not there yet.

I thought it would be fun to make a vest from the apple print, and I'm still happy to make New Look 6514 from something besides patchwork (although I definitely will make it from patchwork sometime again, especially now that I have the die cutter.)  As much as I like making patchwork, it does, y'know, add significant time to a project; without the additional labor of patchwork, this is a quick project.

 

 It is at this point that I acknowledge that there are probably significant clowncore aspects to this print, and to using it for so many things.  I can live with that.

Vest in Olive

When I was in college, Mom heard about a weird fabric store in a town we never otherwise visited, so of course she decided we should go.  If I remember correctly, the ground floor (big windows, lovely natural light) was proper bolts of fabric, and odds and ends of trim on spools, bulk zippers, random other craft items, and the second floor (no windows, all fluorescent light) held tables and tables of random lengths of fabric.  I don't remember if it was sold by the pound, but it seems likely.

Surprisingly, I was restrained, and got only a few pieces of fabric.  Not surprisingly, I still have two of them--or, at least, I had two, until I used one for this vest

I would have adored a vest made from this fabric when I got it 30 years ago, but any vest I might have tried making back then would not have been this one, so I'm glad I waited.

Ace Vest

 This is a very simple project that took me ages to cut and assemble and I wasn't even sure if I liked it until I tried it on when it was finished and then suddenly it was fantastic.

Patch Vest: Red Edition

Last October, I made a vest from a whole bunch of 2" squares of Halloween print fabric sewn together.  I really like how it turned out, and, while I do enjoy the idea of Halloween all year, I'm ambivalent about orange outside the Halloween Season Proper.

So, I had a vague plan to make another 2" square patchwork vest, and earlier this year I was struck by some red and pink fabrics in my small yardage stash.  I gathered similar and coordinated fabrics, then acknowledged, and proceeded to ignore, the distinct Valentine's Day feeling of everything together.

Last weekend I started cutting the squares.  It helped a lot to reference the finished Halloween vest, so I could count how many patches were needed.  I still managed to cut too many, which is always better than not enough, of course.  I used the Halloween vest as a guide for what patches should go where to make panels big enough for the pattern pieces, and I also learned from the Halloween vest to pay attention to the front opening overlap on the other side, to avoid the same print ending up near itself (it's the second row from the edge on the lower side that the opening edge on the upper side lands next to.)

I started sewing squares together in the evening, then finished the next day

 

 Then I procrastinated and dawdled for most of the rest of the week and finally finished today.

Roll the Die: Patch Vest

 

 Rolled a 4: Patch Vest! (at this point I want to mention, with great amusement, that I didn't have to re-roll any of these.)

Patch here means patchwork, just like the previous project, and vest is view B of New Look 6514.

The vest pattern is completely straightforward and reminds me that I do want to make more vests

just

without cutting a lot of 2" squares from scrap fabric and taking over a day to assemble them into panels just a bit bigger than the pattern pieces first.

     Once that was done, though, zip zoom and the vest was finished

Jumper Fable

 I have been taken with the idea of sewing jumpers/pinafore dresses, but apparently that's not something even remotely fashionable enough for pattern companies to offer many options now.  I do have the original print of a current Simplicity pattern that was first issued in 2004 that happens to include a simple A-line jumper in two lengths, but that wasn't the jumper silhouette I wanted to sew.  I also have a small stack of Burda dirndl patterns, but...waistline issues. (And the pattern used in the previous post did originally include a jumper, but those pieces are long gone from the envelope I thrifted.)

I do know that a lot of older dress patterns will include views that show a shirt being worn under the dress, but I didn't want to just use a dress, since the arm holes should be cut higher on a dress than on something that's meant to have another something worn under it.  Than I had the thought: Hey! I know what's meant to have another something worn under it!  A vest!

I do have several vest patterns (also things that aren't common on current pattern sites now), but I ended up back on the pattern that I had used for the vest I made late last year.  I used view B this time

...well...I started with view B.  I ended up with this

Quick Vest Revisited

 So.  That vest I posted about a week ago.  That floppy floppy vest.

I used the finished opening edge to cut the appropriate shapes from some heavy stabilizer (which has been used in...several of my recent projects, huh)

Then I picked open the lining side seams

maneuvered the stabilizer to the floppy appropriate areas

pinned everything in place

sewed on line of trim

sewed on another line of trim

sewed on another line of trim

re-sewed the lining side seams (including finishing with hand stitched matching thread instead of the "bleh I just want this project done" folded edge machine stitching in black thread I had done before)

and then I took pictures

Quick vest, quick write-up

 Basically

New Look 6514 from 2005

 

lied about not needing interfacing for view D 

The whole time, I was thinking "...shouldn't this have interfacing?  I feel like this should have interfacing.  But the pattern doesn't call for interfacing?  The other views, yes, but this view?  No.  I feel like this should ave interfacing.  But.  I'm going to trust the pattern."

I should not have trusted the pattern.

Or, rather, I should have trusted it more and included that tie and maybe even the potentially reinforcing trim.

But I didn't.