Dresses For December Part 4, The Big Vest

Hello Readers. I am still refashioning dresses this month in honor of Dressember. You can go to Dressember.org to learn more about how they are fighting human trafficking and assisting victims as they begin new lives. What I read was eye-opening to me and I wanted to try to call attention to their work. 

 

 My project today began a big loose vest.

 

 

Is this a big vest? Or a sort of shawl? Whatever it is, I never wore it. It was soft and pretty but it was too big and it hung all over. I think on a tall woman this would look dramatic and elegant. On my 5' body it looked like a blanket. But I loved the design of it. The black and white make such a strong contrasting print.

 

 

I began by putting it on my dress form inside out and pinning it into a dress shape. You can see the pins in the pictures below if you look really close. I used my machine to stitch the two front sides together. This made a seam from the neck to the hem. That seam won't look very nice on the front of my dress though.

 

I turned the dress around and used the back as the front. That seam will be less noticeable in the back of the dress. I cut off the excess and tweaked the fit here and there. The length was a little on the short side.

 

I used some of that excess and cut thin strips to add to the bottom of the dress. It added a couple inches in length. That helped a lot.

 

Here is a look at the front and back of the dress. I tried to match up the design in the back but I couldn't get it perfect (That's OK!) and get the fit I wanted the dress to have. I wanted it to be comfortable and not too tight. I was happy with how it turned out. I was able to make a soft cowl neck at the top of this little sweater dress.

 

This was really fun to put together and to wear.

 

Thanks for reading, now go make yourself something fun.