Sew not me

In March, our church hosted a women’s brunch.  The theme was “Climbing to New Heights,” and the table hostesses were asked to dress in hiking attire to coordinate with the theme.  I scrounged around and found some decent looking hiking clothes and added my hiking boots to round out my look.  But the outfit was missing something.

Now to me, nothing says ‘the great outdoors’ like flannel, and that was just what I needed to bring cohesion to my ensemble. I went through Hubby’s closet to no avail.  Apparently, he rid his wardrobe of the flannel shirts he used to wear during the winter when he would work outdoors.  Shucks!  I still wanted some flannel so I hit a local thrift store and for a $1.10 (They didn’t even charge extra for the paint stains. wink wink!) I picked up a lovely thin flannel men’s shirt that I decided I would make into a vest.  Yes, I said “make into a vest.”  I am no seamstress, nor do I claim to have any sewing skillz, but I do know the most basics of the basics, and I have a sewing machine that was beckoning me to spend time with it.  I naively proceeded to convert the shirt into a vest thinking it really couldn’t be that difficult, because in my head all the steps of the project fit together seamlessly (Ha Ha! I love stupid little puns.).  Well, to make an already long story short, here are the pictures of my project and kinda how I did it.

start

close up

cut off the sleeves and collar

I had to cut the back down the center take some fabric out for a more fitted look, and then I sewed it back together.

iron and pin the sleeves to prepare for sewing

I wasn’t gutsy enough to sew the curvature of the neck, so I wimped out and used some ‘stitch witchery’ and ironed it all down.  I straightened up the bottom of the shirt with a basic hem.  It would have looked cuter with the traditional points many vests have along the bottom on the front, but I ran out of time and want-to.

Finished product:

finished product back

modeling the finished product*

Now I know that you aren’t ooohhhing and aaawwwwing over this vest.  It’s homely, I know. Nonetheless, I am proud of my efforts and that I didn’t totally botch the project and I actually finished it.

This experience really made me appreciate all the work and understand the ridiculousness of the time constraints the contestants on Project Runway go through.  Poor things!  My vest took me around 4 hours to complete.  I can’t imagine making a Red Carpet gown in less than 8.

*Big thanks to A of Tales and Trials for taking my pic wearing the vest.  I didn’t think it would look all that great with a bright flash reflecting in the mirror during my attempt at a self portrait, so A happily obliged to help a friend.