Saturday, August 18, 2012

little man's birthday outfit, pt 2

Ok, sorry I skipped a day guys.  I had a bit of a stomach bug or food poisoning or something similarly awful yesterday, and didn't feel up to computer-ing.  
So today is Asher's official big day.  He's had a nice time so far, I believe.  He played with his new bike and ran wild at the playground for some time this morning while sissy had soccer practice, and then celebrated with pizza and a sundae at California Pizza Kitchen.  He's now sleeping off the sugar high, so I have a chance to hang with you guys.
So, as promised, a brief tutorial on how to make the dapper 'lil man vest.


The nice thing about this vest is the back is made from a t shirt.  That removes about five steps involving hemming, and makes it super comfy and stretchy.  My daughter, in fact, can wear this vest as well.  So, start with a tee that fits well, and turn it inside out, tucking the sleeves into the shirt body, like so:


Line it up against the collar of the white tee shirt's back and trace around.  
 (I shoulda used a darker marker- but you can see it, right?)


Cut out your pattern piece, and mark center bottom and center top:


Lay this on top of your front fabric and trace the shoulders and sides.  Make a v line down the front, and angle the bottom hem down slightly to get the vest shape.  Cut this out, and then flip it, and place it on the linen, tracing again to get the other side of the front of your vest.  


Repeat this with your lining fabric, until you have two sets of mirror-image front pieces:


Iron the tee shirt armhole and hem and then topstitch down.  Knit won't fray so you can leave the edges raw.  I sewed once on the arms and two lines on the hem...




Line your front pieces rights sides facing in, and sew around the edges, leaving a couple inch gap in the future button portion for turning right side out again:



Iron flat, folding in the gap you left for turning.  Topstitch the neck, button panel,  and bottom.  


 Pin, then sew, the sides to the t-shirt back, and then do the same with the shoulders.  If you'd like, you can do a french seam here, but I just did a single straight seam, again leaving the knit edges raw.




Lay the vest flat and mark where you'd like your buttons to go.  You can then either do buttonholes on one side, and buttons on the other, or use snaps or hook-and-eyes and just put faux buttons on the top.  I had just sewn umpteen buttonholes in a jacket, so I went with hook-and-eyes.  




All done!  Pretty easy, no?  Lots of room for variation, as well.  You can make it single-breasted, or a rounded V neck, or cropped, for instance...  


And leave it unbuttoned for the afterparty ;)


Mr. was a sweet boy and got me some pictures of Asher playing during Kenzie's practice this morning.  
Does he look 2 now?
(say no!)



This is his Blue Steel look..  Or Magnum?  What is it when you go left?

This is typical Asher Vaughn.  A crazy monkey boy that makes mommy's heart stop every few minutes.  

On his new balance bike sent to him from his PaPaw.   It's a pretty sweet ride. 

That's all for now.  I may revisit this evening if the blowing-out-the-candles pictures prove too cute to wait....  :) 

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