Gemma’s Emily Vest
It’s always a head scratcher when you receive the complimentary fabric as you want to come up with a good idea for getting the most from your 1m, and I have to say that this month I think I really nailed it, even surprising myself!
I must confess that I am not a Christmas person, and I did get a slight festive vibe from the colours of the tartan, so wanted to make something that I could wear all year round rather than party season, and it just so happened that at the time I received the fabric The Foldline popped into my inbox with a sale on patterns from a new-to-me pattern company – Juliana Martejevs. One of the patterns really caught my attention: The Emily Vest. This was the perfect pattern for me to give my own spin and create something useful to wear with lots of outfits!
The Emily Vest is a quilted cropped jacket that was (and still is) very much on trend this year. It is a great layering piece, and you can really have fun when making your own – using pre-quilted fabric makes it a lot quicker, or you can try your hand at quilting the pieces yourself. Once I had decided to make a vest, I then had the fun of pulling together other fabrics to use – the idea being that I would use the supplementary cotton for the outside of the jacket and so wanted something for the lining inside. I played with the idea of jazzing it up perhaps with velvet, but settled on a bouclé fabric, as not only did I like the contrast in texture and material, but the added bonus of extra warmth! I did end up sneaking a little bit of velvet into the make for the straps, and finished it all with a bottle green bias binding, completing a great fabric pairing!
I did go a bit rogue when it came to the construction of my vest and kind of used the pattern as more of a template. The making of it is fairly simple, the hardest part being the binding of all the edges as you want to really make sure you are stitching through both sides and creating a neat finish. Because I like to make things hard for myself (!) I added a layer of wadding to the inside so that it would be even warmer, this did mean that the layers were quite thick to sew through. I did french seams for the shoulder and side seams, although it did make it quite bulky, and it is meant to have darts on both the front bodices and the back, but I left off the back ones. I didn’t quilt my fabric as I didn’t see the need with a tartan print (and pointless with a fluffy boucle) and I also didn’t bother with the welt pockets. I did want to make an attempt at some kind of stripe matching, but only really managed it on the fronts, never mind, but all in all I well and truly made it my own!
One thing I will highlight is the sizing of the pattern: unfortunately it isn’t the most inclusive. I made the largest size which stated it would have positive ease, however I find it is pretty close fitting, which is what I wanted but certainly isn’t the ‘size 20’ it states it is, which is a shame but luckily this size worked out for me.
It is definitely a win for the 1m project, and a great way to pair up fabrics to create completely different looks – even a scrap buster should you want to give patchworking a go!
This vest will be my new secret for keeping warm and will be layered over so many blouses, a great addition to the wardrobe!