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The pattern came from Alexandra Capadalis Dupre's Men's Vests. I don't recommend this book. She discusses a few vests that she and other's have made for men, but other than a couple of applique patterns, there is no instruction on construction. I found the book to be uninspiring, and for the next vest that I make for a man, I plan on using a commercial pattern.
I used Carol Doak's Easy Reversible Vests for the inspiration for the design of the front of the vest. I cut strips from one (1) inch width to two (2) inches and pieced them using a quarter inch seam allowance. I did not use a foundation. For me, strips one inch wide are too narrow because you have to sew a lot, and strips two inches wide were too visually dominate.
For the back, I used two methods from Judy Murrah's Jacket Jazz, stitch-and-slash (four layers) and symmetric bargello. Judy Murrah recommends butting the 2 pieces of patchwork together and covering the interface with bias binding or some other decortive trim.
Because this is a
jacket for a man, I decided to see what it would look like if I
zig-zagged the stitch-and-slash on top of the symmetric bargello with a
muslin under both pieces. I
figured if it looked terrible, I could cover the zig-zag stitching with
a black bias strip. As you can see in the detail image to the right,
the zig-zag stitching hardly shows.
I strongly recommend that you position your symmetric bargello with respect to a yoke or other details before you cut it out. If you can't tell, my symmetric bargello is not symmetric or very straight. I cut out the symmetric bargello portion of the back and then positioned the yoke on top of it. I was lucky that there was enough slop in the seam allowances for me to move the symmetric bargello around to get it to look mostly symmetric and mostly straight.
I used Sandra Betzina's Gold Medal Vest Lining method to line the vest with the leaf print. I highly recommend this method of lining a vest. Not only is is very quick and easy, it also gives you a reversible vest.
Using the scraps from my husbands vest, I made my daughter a vest. I really like the stitch-and-slash,
so I designed her vest around that. I had a nice piece of symmetric
bargello for the left front. On the right, I put an piece of the
symmetric bargello down on an angle and crazy pieced my leftover strips
around it. The back features the stitch-and-slash with diagonal strips
and a bit of symmetric bargello.I used the vest from the Little Sprouts' Wardrobe by k.p. kids & co. and Sandra Betzina's Gold Medal Vest Lining method to line the vest with the leaf print. However, the vest lining method doesn't work as well with a toddler's vest, and I should have given the side to leave open more thought. You can see the stitching on the lower left of the back where I sewed the vest closed. I think it would have showed less if I had left the turn hole on the right.
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