Faux Fur Vest for Cheap

Secret Squirrel is nearly ready to say hello again...check back here or at StraightGrain to find out where he travels to next - on August 1st!I hoped to post a tutorial on how I made it soon after, but my pattern took over and the tutorial got put on the back burner. So now that my pattern is finished, I have had time to put this together and hope you like it! (It took me a while with super slow internet at the moment...Grrr...Vodafone!!)

I love this vest. It is so soft and cosy. I bought the faux fur from GJ's Fabric in Brunswick, Melbourne. It is acrylic but really soft. It was about $27 per metre from memory, but luckily I only needed 30cm (it was 150cm wide bolt) to make a little vest for Juliette. I wanted my vest to not quite meet in the middle (front), so I have written up the tutorial for such a vest.

You will need:

• Faux fur - I only needed 30cm to fit my three year old
• ! So take care when pressing lining (or just don't worry about pressing ironing to be safe!
  Firstly, begin by choosing a reasonably fitted t-shirt that fits your child.
  1. Turn your T-shirt inside out and fold down the centre and trace around your T-shirt - lining up with the vertical edge of your paper. Add seam allowance. *I did not add seam allowance to the hem as I wanted my vest to be cropped, rather than long. 2. Lay paper over your traced back piece and draw a front piece - I lowered the front neckline by 3 cm. You will see I also shortened the hemline of the back (and so also the front) by 3cm.
  3. Create a curve at the top and bottom of your centre front. I used a French curve, but you can just draw this freehand.
  4. Cut out your pattern pieces.
  *You will not be able to cut your fur on the fold, so cutting of the fur is a little unconventional.

  5. Place your front piece on your fur (wrong side) with pile facing downward. Trace with texta.
  6. Flip front piece over and trace your second front.
  7. Place your back piece on the fur and trace as you did for front.
  8. Flip pattern piece directly over without leaving a gap so you can complete tracing the other half of your back piece.

  9. Cut out your fur pieces. When cutting, carefully cut the weave of the fur and not the pile. You can achieve this by using sharp scissors and holding the blades close to the weave. By not cutting the fur, you will not end up with blunted edges and seams.

  Your fur pieces will look like this:

  10. Cut out your corresponding lining pieces:

  
  11. With right sides together, sew your shoulder seams (forgot to take pic of sewing fur shoulder seams together, but I think you can work that out! Just try to push the fur out of the way of the seams as you sew). For lining - press seams open as shown.
  12. With right sides together, sew fur and lining together as indicated by aqua line.
  13. Sew arm hole curves on both sides as shown.
  14. Turn your vest right side out: Reach up into vest from back and pull front through to back. Repeat for opposite front.
  

  15: Sew side seams: you will be able to pin the lining, but it is too awkward to pin the fur. Sew up along lining and then along fur as shown below.

  17: Continuing with vest inside out, sew hem, leaving a gap on one side to turn your vest right side out.

  
  18: Turn vest right side out through gap and hand stitch gap shut. Turn both the lining and fur edges under as you sew.

  And you are finished:)