vest fronts- ignore wonky looking pockets

As mentioned previously, my sister-in-law is getting married this Friday. Two of my nephews are in the wedding and needed some vests to wear. My other sis-in-law (I have 5 on the hubs side!) mentioned that she was not able to find any vests she liked at the store so I volunteered myself to make them since I had made one for the little man for Easter. At this point, I’m wondering why I always volunteer myself for these things, but I just can’t seem to resist. I do enjoy it and it’s good experience for me but somehow everything ends up needing to be done in about 2 days time!

I had planned on going to the fabric store to find the outer vest material but as the closest Joann is over 30 minutes away and we are a one car family, it just never worked out. I had the idea to get some men’s dress pants and use those. I went to Goodwill and found several pairs of men’s pants that were the right color in the $1 section. Score! All was going well as I took my nephew’s measurements and cut out the first vest…until I got it all sewed together and realized it was 3 inches too short. Oh drat! Back to the drawing board. This time I actually used an old pair of my husband’s pants because I wanted both boys to have the same fabric.  Final fitting went well…whew! For the back of the vest, I cut along the outer fold in the pant’s leg- now it has a nice finished seam down the middle that I didn’t have to sew! Vest number two is cut a bit wider around the back and armholes as nephew two is a bit bulkier than nephew one…He’s not here to try it on so let’s hope it fits!

The vests are a boy’s size 5/6 and I discovered that this is about the largest size I can use and still get one vest out of each pant leg. For the lining fabric, I used some boyish fabric in my stash.  I got the vest idea from a tutorial I found on Pinterest but I have tweaked her instructions a bit.

Changes I made

Topstitched around the entire vest when finished.

Wait to sew pockets on until after buttons are in place- somehow the pockets end up being lopsided otherwise. (this is a change I’ll put in place next time I make a vest as I had to learn the hard way this time. )

A few other odds and ends: only topstitched once on the pockets, sewed the front arm holes closed before turning, sewed all but a few inches together before turning right-side out, vests are not reversible.

vest backs…see the factory seam I kept?

I am really happy with the final product…just have to do some seam ripping to fix the pocket problem and they are all done. Now on to cleaning the house and cutting out 100 ten inch quilt squares before we leave tomorrow morning!