Christmas Vest Revisted

I cannot believe this year has flown by with only one new post from me. Maybe now that my books are done--The Sewing Answer Book is in the editing stages now and is due to be released in July of 2010--I will actually have some time to sew and work on new patterns and post more often.

Merry Christmas to anyone who is following me and hasn't given up on my blog! I really do hope to post more often in the months ahead.

I'm generally not one to leave a project unfinished, but I must admit there are a few things hiding in my workroom that I haven't quite completed. One was a Christmas patchwork vest that I made in the early 90s as a work-in-progress sample for one of Judy Murrah's wearable art books (while was Editor-in-Chief at That Patchwork Place). It has been tucked away to finish for a special holiday ever since. Now that I have more time to sew, I've decided to finish, give away, or toss that have languished long enough.

When I brought out this pretty Christmas vest to finish, I basted the side seams and tried it on. Oh Dear! Something happened to my figure in the intervening years and it didn't fit me anymore!

And it was shorter than I like to wear these days—no tummy-hiding with this shorter, classic vest design! Not wanting to toss the vest and knowing no one it would fit if I did finish it, I decided to cut it apart and use parts of it to make a special Christmas stocking for my granddaughter, Kendall. She will be 21 months at Christmas time and I can't wait to see her reaction to Grammy's Christmas decorations. I've had to put things up high to keep the amount of temptation to a minimum.

It was fun to use some of the patchwork parts of my never-finished Christmas vest to make this little stocking for her.

I cut the stocking front from the patchwork made for the vest back. I rescued the cute little "baby block" packages from one front and fused them to the stocking front. Next I cut a back and the cuff from fabric leftovers that I still had in my box of green scraps and fat quarters. A short length of wire-edged ribbon for the loop was the finishing touch. I hope Kendall will keep this stocking forever, as a remembrance of her "bonus" Grammy.

Note: I didn't have a stocking pattern of the right size, so I photocopied a stocking shape I liked from an old catalog clipping, then enlarged it in several steps on my copier until it was a size that would fit across the back of the vest on the patchwork. I traced it onto tissue paper so I could see the patchwork for positioing purposes and then cut it out of the patchwork. I cut the toe and heel from patchwork pieces leftover after cutting the stocking front.