VEST

February 19, 2014

When I was looking for stuff to take to my daughter's for our quilt weekend I came across a box with a vest already cut out and ready to sew. The fabric is a beautiful double knit in a color I love so I have no idea why it got set aside but a couple of days ago I decided I needed to finish it.

Today I sewed the side seams and the shoulder seams using my machine then found out why I didn't finish the vest before. I do not have enough fabric for the cowl color so I am improvising. It is called "design opportunity.

Since I didn't have enough fabric to cut the collar I decided to use some hand stitching to add the pieces together to make it long enough though only half as wide...but the fabric has enough body to use if separately so that is what I am doing. Here you can see the pieces joined together with a Cretan stitch which is one of my favorites of the embroidery stitches. I had to use 4 different pieces to make it come out the correct length. 

February 20th

Now I have arranged the collar on the vest and hand sewn it around the neck  putting the pieced seams in  attractive locations and hand sewing them on using a flat felled seam. Next I will decide on how to finish the arm holes and bottom.

February 28th
I have finally decided on the hem finish. Will also use it on the armholes unless I can make a nice sleeve...may just leave it sleeveless and wear a shirt under it...

Finally finished the hem today...

March 1st

Now to decide on the armholes. It will depend on what I can find to either match or contrast nicely with what I have. Also thinking about turning it into a dress by adding an extension to bottom with  the fabric I find to do the sleeves. I saw a dress on a fashion site that looked just like this vest but longer...thinking that since I like to wear dresses I might see about doing just that.

March 7th.


It is about time...

I finally finished my vest today...I decided on finishing it sleeveless since no matter how I did it the sleeve did not look right. The Cretan stitch worked out to be the best finish for  the armholes.

Then after many tries of different stitches I decided to continue on with the Cretan stitch to finish the neck edge since the flat felled stitching I did was not attractive. Here you can see the joins of the collar and the finish of the neckline and sleeve.









Here is the finished vest that should have taken one day but took me nearly 2.5 weeks to complete...and...












here is what I have left of the embroidery floss that I used for the cretan stitch. Enough to do one more set of stitches covering about 8 inches ...Good thing I am finished.