Leaf Vest
LEAF VEST SUGGESTIONS: My cording was purchased from Joann’s and was a Wright cord wrapped with some gold thread. Use whatever you want for that cording. Cutting and Construction: Also, using the back pattern piece, cut a piece of the interfacing about 4” wide that will cover the back neck and shoulder area and iron it to the back. I wanted the left side to have the vine go over the shoulder a bit and have two leaves on the backside. The right side just goes up to the shoulder seam and stops. Sew the left front and back together at the shoulder seams and press the seam open. DO NOT SEW THE RIGHT FRONT TO THE BACK UNTIL AFTER YOU DO THE CORDING SO THAT IT WILL BE INSIDE THE SEAM AND NOT UNRAVEL. I would lay the pattern paper on top of the cut out vest and draw the front opening edge and the bottom edge of the vest onto the paper. Pin the paper to the vest so it won’t move. Draw the vine according to how you want it to look on the completed vest. THIS IS IMPORTANT: Once you have it where you think it looks best, use your favorite method of transferring the design to the fabric. Then you can just turn the pattern over and align your actual vest outline that you drew on the pattern on top of the RIGHT front vest and trace the design there too but don‘t do the over the shoulder part. I just place short straight lines where I want to apply the leaves. Attach your “narrow braiding foot”. Put the cord underneath the back of the foot about 3” holding the tail down with your right hand and with the other hand, pull the cord into that small hook on the top of the foot to hold the cord. Thread the machine with invisible thread and set it up for a zig zag stitch of SL 1.5 and SW 1.5. When you are sewing, pay attention to where you are stitching and the foot will take care of the cord. You will have to sew slowly so you can pivot constantly to form those drawn loops. You may even want to reduce your pressure a little so you can more freely move the fabric to form those loops. Sew the cording down on the left front starting at the lower front edge and ending at the back shoulder area going off the neck edge. At the end of that cording, I reduce my stitch length to 0 so it will secure the ends of the cord. Then sew the cording on the RIGHT front the same way and after it is done, sew the right shoulder seam to the back vest. The leaf I used was from Viking’s Card 15, Design 15 menu 1. I edited the first leaf out because it was exactly what I wanted. I also make it all one color. The thread I used was Coats and Clarks Teddy thread which is a tweed type of thread. Other manufacturers have this kind of thread too. I use my Customizing program to place as many leaves on the screen as possible for the largest hoop so I can sew as many as possible at one time. I needed 24 for my vest. I hoop up two layers of the organza and stitched directly onto that. When they were done, I removed the hoop but not the fabric. I used a "stencil burner" and burned around each leaf. You should run the tip around the designs rapidly so that you won't burn into the design. This seals the edges. When all leaves are done, place them where you drew the short straight lines for leaf placement and look at your pattern to make sure. Some areas will have three leaves and other areas will have only 2. Place the leaves so that the stems will almost touch each other and look like they are connected to the vine. Using the invisible thread, sew from one end of each leaf down the center vein to the other end with the same small zig zag stitch. When all leaves are attached, you can then sew your lining to the
vest in the waythat suits you the best.
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