My Crazy Vest

 

If you are a sewist and visit Pinterest and/or Instagram, you may have seen the garments made by a Russian knitter that combine tailored suits and beautiful sweaters. The link I have to her work is corrupt and I'm advised not to go there unfortunately.  The garments I saw were a combination of  exquisitely tailored women's worsted suits  and  the artist's  knitting skills from the bottom up, ending in tendrils midway, quite intriguing.  Since then, others on youtube have tried to imitate the process. I was so taken by it that I had to try it as well. 

None of those who tried the knitted  tendrils knitted them up into the garment. They all started with a sweater, as I did.  It took months for me to find the right sweater to go with my yardage, a wool blend, sort of tweedy.  It was all great fun, very experimental and in the end wearable. I knew it wouldn't be like the artisan knitter's garment but it would be mine.  

I had all sorts of ideas to get those tendrils up the garment. In the end, I would do it differently next time, having learned a bit. The machine was my friend here. I'll go thru my process with you. 

Pattern

For my pattern I wanted something really simple and found it in the Purl Soho Quilted Vest pattern. It is free and you can find it HERE.  My goal was a vest I could really wear to keep warm, particularly around my house. I've worn it a lot since it has been made. I changed the vest to have a slight v-neck and also straightened out the bottom hem edge and removed the curved side slits. 

Fabrics

The lining is an upcycle, or maybe a down cycle, depending on how you look at it! This print is a poly satin skirt that I made and wore to a winter wedding a few years back. There was a lot of fabric in this skirt. You can see the hand picked zipper, deeply tucked border on the hem and the lining in the skirt. It was full and box pleated and HEAVY. I wore it with a very scooped front and back black leotard top. It looked nice but I was done with it once the wedding was over. I kept it for the fabric and it's second chance had now arrived. 

The tailored part of this vest was a tweed wool blend, a soft black with little flecks of grey, light and dark. 

Here is the sweater, a classic cabled crew neck. What I needed for my vision was a sweater with a knitted band all around, not too deep or thin. That was for the hem.  Then I wanted some with cables and rows going up, the better to play with for tendrils. Having sleeves with the same cables would be a plus as would knitted cuffs to match the band. It took a while but I finally found this one day at Goodwill. No pills! and clean. 

I had to give a lot of thought to how this would work. 

Construction

I decided the woolen fabric would be quilted, the better to balance all the texture of the sweater part. I wanted the vest to be warm and the quilting required a batt of sorts. I also wanted to keep this as simple as possible. I started by eliminating the side seams by overlapping the pattern pieces. A piece of well washed flannel would be my batting. It would go throughout. I laid the flannel down then the wool face up on top. Next I drew in diagonal lines to quilt on. I did all that quilting and then drew more lines in the opposite direction, making diamond shapes.  I stitched all around the outline of the vest. I decided not to cut back the batting until I absolutely had to. I found this was a really good idea.  Keeping the flannel across the armscyes really helped stabilized the sewing into one flat sheet to work with. 

After the quilting was done it was deal with the sweater. Before I cut the sweater  anywhere, I did a line of stitches on either side of the the future cut to prevent unravelling. Since I need a broad swath across the back and to wrap around to the center front. I had to cut open the side seams of the sweater. One would go up center back, one front. Sleeves and full collar had to be carefully removed as well and set aside. Shoulder seams were opened.  This gave me two large pieces to play with around the bodice. My first step was to connect them at what would be the CB seam area. I overlapped them and stitched on top. Then I cut them back. I balanced the cables so it would all look nice and intentional. 

I made sure my knit hem would end longer than my wool hem. Next I started sewing straight lines at the side seams and in the middle but only about 2/3 of the way up the green. I wasn't sure what I would do for the tendrils yet. I just wanted to secure a flat base and it was when done. 

This pic above is actually stitched to the wool base. You cannot see the stitching at all. It nestles right into the knit. I made sure I stitched in the ditch, usually right next to a thin line or cable. Amazing how it hides other than a slight bit at CB where the pieces lap.

After a night's sleep it was time to face the interesting part, cutting those tendrils. I cut some large ups and downs across the whole piece. I stitched from the hem to the highest points. Then I took the scissors and cut them back. Stitch more, cut more, continuing always to the end. That was basically the method. I thought to myself if I did this again, I'd work out a way to use Steam A Seam and then cut. But how would I press and not ruin the texture of the sweater? Let me know your ideas. 

When it was all stitched on it was then stitched horizontally across the top edge. 

I used the edges of the cuffs to make the edgeing for the neckline.  

There are 3 bound buttonholes in the vest. This one, a bit fiddly, came out better than I thought. 

This hanging shot will give a better idea of the lining. It's understitched all around. The bound buttonholes have the lining handstitched all around.  There is a pleat, hard to see, going down the center back. The hem has a jump pleat at the bottom. 

I wasn't sure quite where the hem would finish. In the end I let the sweater hem hang about an inch longer and turned in the wool hem. Then I hand stitched the lining to the wool hem further up so the extra length of the lining would make a small pleat for vertical ease. You can see I needed to add  extra bit of fabric all across and that was fine. 

In Conclusion:

This was challenging and fun. It made me think. I thank this Russian knitter who inspired me and others to mimic her artistry, albeit a meager attempt. I've worn this quite a bit since it was made. It is nice and warm and I've gotten many compliments on it. Will I make another? Doubt it as I have seen another unique wool project I would like to try. We are so lucky that we access to such amazing inspiration in our immense digital world. There is so much in my queue. I feel blessed. I think I will do a post on some of my upcoming projects soon. Happy sewing............Bunny