FiddleBoyBlue has been wanting me to make him a vest. A while back, he helped pick out a pattern. I learned one sewing lesson after we got home from purchasing that pattern--check to see that you got the right size! But since I only paid $0.99 for the pattern anyway, I just kept the extra-large size, and then was able to go back and get the correct size for another $0.99. Someday, I expect I'll be able to use the bigger pattern for someone else.I have a hard time picking fabrics, so I got my sweetie to come along with me one day to look for a variety of fabrics for a variety of projects. What we did find was a wonderful fall weight wool suiting fabric that looked just like something FiddleBoyBlue would like for his vest, and it was on clearance! Bonus! Then my sweetie and I looked around for a lining fabric. Initially we looked at off white, boring fabrics, but then I saw some black fabric with cards all over it, and that got me inspired. We began looking for a fabric that would totally "fit" FBB's personality, and ultimately settled on a hunter's camouflage fabric, a knock-off of Mossy Oak (they had Mossy Oak too, but the colors of the knock off worked a lot better with the brown wool that we picked). When we got home and showed the fabrics to FBB he loved them!
The fabrics sat around for a while, but a week or two ago I did get them washed and dried, prepped for getting around to making the vest. Originally the plan was to have it made in time for a wedding the end of May, but just yesterday FBB decided that he REALLY wanted it made in time for a cast party he was going to today. All righty, then! I told him it probably would NOT get done in time, but I'd start working on it, and we'd see how far we could get One concern I had was that I'd never done buttonholes before and I would have to be figuring that out to get the vest finished. But with him floating on high hopes, I pulled out the tape measured and determined he had about a 37" chest. We considered making a size 40 vest for some room to grow (after all, he is still only 15) but ultimately we decided we really should do the 38. I tasked FBB with getting some printer paper patterns made from the tissue paper pattern pieces. We then made a trek to the local Hobby Lobby to pick up a few notions--thread to match, buttons to match, and D-rings for the little belt strips on the back of the vest. While we were there, I picked up a few more $0.99 McCalls patterns (score!) and a couple remnants, and FBB got some new bandanas, including a dark scab-red one that he thought would like great tied around the neck of a white long sleeve shirt worn with his new vest.
After dinner, once all the little people were asleep in bed, we got to work on cutting out the fabric pieces. We had to remake a couple printer paper pieces that were a bit shorter than they were supposed to be, but other than that, everything went very smoothly. While we were cutting the fabric, we were pre-shrinking the fusible interfacing and left that to dry. By the time we were done cutting out the fabric, I was beat and called it a night.
A couple or three weeks ago, when my sweetie and I were shopping for the fabric, I also picked up a rotary cutter and a cutting mat. They were not only on sale, but I also had a coupon for additional $$ off. I didn't use them on cutting out FBB's vest, though, because I didn't want to "practice" on his much-anticipated vest. I'll try them with the next project though!
So, this morning, after getting the interfacing cut, I began work on sewing the vest. It wasn't long before FBB was out of bed and hovering! Over the course of the morning, he had many "aha" moments as I was figuring out what to do and getting it done. Really, sewing it up wasn't all that hard. FBB said to not know how to sew, I sure looked like I knew what I was doing! I laughed, said thanks, and I think proved more than once that I still had to THINK really hard and read and re-read (and re-read again, and think some more) to understand sometimes the directions. However, not once did I have to research anything on youtube with this project! That's pretty amazing!
So, I ironed the fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the front vest where the buttons and button holes would end up. Then I did the stay-stitching around the neckline. Next I worked on the pocket, and explained to FBB about the "facing" at the open edge of the pocket.
Next I worked on making and attaching the belts to the back piece of the vest. Using a chop stick made it very easy to turn the belt pieces inside out, so I added that chop stick to my new sewing tackle box. (Oh yeah--I got a pink and green sewing tackle box too, when we got the fabric and rotary cutter stuff). My only complaint with how the belts come out is that the wool fabric is kind of slippery and so they don't stay especially taught when fastened through the D-rings. However, they're good enough. FBB wasn't sure he wanted to add the belts, but I think after the fact that he's glad we did. They do look nice.
Once the belts were attached, it was time to seam the front pieces to the back piece at the shoulders, and then to repeat for the lining fabric pieces. Then I pinned the lining to the outer pieces, right sides together, and seamed around all the edges except for the side edges, which stayed open. After trimming the seams and corners to reduce bulk, I turned the vest inside out, pulling the front pieces through the shoulders and out the side back. It sounds tricky, but really wasn't hard at all.
The trickiest part was probably the next step--attaching the front pieces to the back at the sides and closing the side seams. I pinned the outer vest fabrics together, right sides together, working through the side opening between the outer fabric and liner fabric pieces. I continued to pin at least an inch above and below the outer fabric such that I was then pinning the lining fabric together. Then I seamed that together through the opening. It's hard to explain, and I had to read it quite a few times, look at the picture quite a few times, think really hard, and read and look again, and then it finally clicked. After seaming that, I needed to slip stitch the rest of the opening in the lining fabric together. However, I was more than ready for a bite to eat and a break on my eyeballs (they ain't what they used to be!). I handed the needle and thread to FBB and HE did the slip stitching to close it up, and he did a good job too. He's done some stitching work with some of the leather work he's done out in the shed. He'd have been doing even more (besides just hovering and getting in the way sometimes!), except he had this party deadline of 1:30pm. He continued to stay hopeful that we were actually going to get it done in time for him to wear to the party, but I again warned him that I had to figure out how to do buttonholes.
Well, after my short break and FBB getting the slip stitching done, I pulled out the owner's manual for my sewing machine and began to try to figure which buttonhole to do and just how to do it. I had several choices, including a medium duty buttonhole, and key hole buttonhole, and a heavy duty buttonhole. The medium duty used foot C but the key hole and the heavy duty used an automatic sensor buttonhole foot that came with my machine. I decided to give the automatic buttonhole foot a try. After all, "automatic" had to be pretty easy, right?
After attaching the foot, I measured the button on the little gauge on the front of the machine. My 3/4" button measured to be 18mm, so I punched that in to the machine. The owner's manual said that lining the edge of the fabric up with the middle red line on the left side of the foot would provide a 5/8" distance for the buttonhole edge, so I gave that a try on a scrap of the wool fabric, first trying the key hole and then the heavy duty. I noticed that they were not the same distance from the edge of the fabric, so I tried again and got the same results. When FBB saw the two different types of buttonholes, he decidedly preferred the squarer heavy duty buttonhole. so that's what we went with.
I marked the front of the vest using some straight pins to show where the buttonholes were to line up. I also measured how far they should be from the edge of the fabric according to the pattern. The distance was 3/4", so I tried another practice buttonhole on the scrap, and determined that if I put the edge of the fabric at the far end of the foot, it would give me a distance of exactly 3/4" to the beginning of the buttonhole. So, with FBB and my sweetie watching, I decided to make it official--I was either going to make a beautiful buttonhole, or screw up the vest! Much to my great amazement and delight, adding the buttonholes was an absolute piece of cake! The machine just did it, lickety split, no problems at all! How amazing is that? I really like my sewing machine! There was only one thing left to do to finish those easy, lovely buttonholes, and that was to actually put the holes in them. I grabbed the seam ripper that came with my machine and poked it through the buttonhole, inside the stitching, up near the right hand side, and then just gently pushed the seam ripper across the buttonhole towards the left. Presto! A complete and beautiful buttonhole! Well, at this point, the vest was all but done. All that was left was adding the buttons themselves. We lined up the front pieces and marked with a few straight pins where the buttons should be attached. We both read the instructions on how to sew on a 4-hole button. Fascinated that there were specific button-sewing directional, I decided to look it up in my DK Sewing Book too and compare instructions. The only difference was the DK book had you sew an "x" on through the four holes instead of a couple parallel stitches, though I'm not sure it really matters. You do the sewing over top of a toothpick to make some extra space to form a shank of thread to be the right distance to lay correctly through the fabric layers of the buttonhole. How cool is that? It's discovering little things like that that can be so fascinating!
Anyway, at this point, It was time to leave for the party. We'd essentially gotten the vest done in time, but it still lacked the buttons. I handed the vest to FBB, along with a needle, the bobbin from the machine with the matching thread on it, and the buttons, and told him to take it with him and finish it there. He thought that was a pretty cool idea! (How many teenage boys do you know who would enjoy sewing buttons onto a vest at a party? lol!) And so, by the end of the party, FBB was dressed in his white button-down, his dark red bandana, and his dapper new vest, looking pretty HOT (literally--it's a wool vest with a fairly heavy liner, and it was in the mid-80s outside!). He didn't have it on for long at all before commenting that it was indeed hot to wear, but he loves it so much he was keeping it on anyway (except for when the party was doing ultimate frisbee outside!). Now he's going to be wanting to get some summer weight fabrics and make another vest (or two or three or four). He's going to be a vest junky, but they really are "him." I'm so glad he likes it! Now, maybe HE can make the next one!
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