Finishing the vest

This is a continuation of the construction of the vest after all the embroidery.

10.  I embroidered the jacket intact with the sleeves so that the hoop would have plenty of material to grip.  I’m not sure I needed toas it did add a lot of bulk to toss around. Time to cut the sleeves.

11. At this point I tried on the vest and realized that as-a-vest it needed some adjustments – the armholes were too big and the vest as awhole needed shortening. So I a. inserted a tab at the bottom of the armhole using fabric from the sleeve to reduce the size. b. folded up the yokes and sewed a seam, and then topstitched.

Inserting a piece to sleeve opening to reduce armhole size.

Armhole insert from inside with zig-zagged edges and applying fray check.

Front yoke seam after topstitching.

Back yoke seam before topstitching.

12. I finished the jacket edges and inside seams with scrappy pieced bias binding.  Here are some pics but the real detail is at this link to a great tutorial on Nancy Zieman’s (Sewing with Nancy) site: Scrappy Bias Binding

13. FINAL step: I wanted to protect the stitching on the inside from wear and tear so I laid over a piece of tule and sewed in down along the edges and around the embroidery. The black stitching on the black denim is invisible from the front.