Aw, man. So I've been working on this vest for a month...
Not just the sewing of the vest, though. I also had to design the pattern and work through a test garment to tweak it first. I know, I always seem to be doing that. But then I have a perfect pattern I can use to make a million things with, right? If only it worked out that way! I just get bored with doing the same thing all time.
Anyhow. Here is a vest that I have dubbed "Eugenia". I was going to call it "Eugene" after my favorite Andrew Bird song, but thought slightly better of it at the last moment. Slightly.
The inspiration for this vest came from the fabulous draped styles of one of the premier art deco designers of the 1920s, Erte. These days you mostly see his illustrations of theatrical costumes and other elaborate formal attire, but he also deigned lovely draped day wear with fascinating interlocked and wrap-around pieces.
The fabric I used here is 100% wool and 100% cotton. I have moved away from synthetics whenever possible, these days. Natural fibers are more comfortable to wear, as you probably already know, but they are also better to work with. You can mold a piece of wool in ways that polyester would never allow, and silk drapes in such beautiful ways that synthetics will never quite replicate.
The edges of the front panels, here, were all stitched by hand and took eons to complete. I am quite happy with the way it worked out, though! Originally I was going to make the buttons functional and space them out down the front in a normal sort of way. I was inspired along the way, though, by one of those happy accidents, and instead settled on decorative buttons and a snap-front closure. I use snaps on most of my shirts, rather than buttons, because I like the hidden quality of them as well as the fact that you can't mess up an otherwise perfect garment by sewing a snap on the way you can by sewing a buttonhole on a dicky machine.
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