Patterns -
Love Notions' Oakley Vest for Women, Acorn Vest for Girls
Skill Level - Intermediate
Fabric - faux fur from
Fabricville Online
Skills - working with faux fur, using a craft knife
The newest Love Notions pattern is a vest - for women and girls - with the usual offering of options. There's a simple, open fronted vest which can be made of faux fur. Two zipper-fronted views give you a choice of straight front or princess seams. Pockets, of course - and a choice of collar or hood. I'd never worked with faux fur before, so of course I chose View A and hit the Internet for clues on how to handle it.
One of the first things I learned is that most faux furs have a nap - that means that the "fur" fibres will lie in one direction. It's very important that all of your pieces are oriented in the same direction - either with nap going up or nap going down - or it will be obvious that your naps are in opposition to each other. You can see from the picture above - left faces down and right faces up - the down nap appears darker than the up nap. And the garment will actually wear better if the nap is facing down.
My View A is lined and I chose a heavy black satin to give the inside a luxurious feel. Some faux furs will have a finish on the inside that doesn't need to be lined.
Cutting the pieces is another new thing to me. You don't simply lay your pattern pieces on the fabric and rotary or scissor cut. You trace the outline on the backing of your fabric - which is why the back pattern piece is a whole one.
If your backing is a light colour you can use a marker to trace your pattern piece. Mine was black, so I used tailor's chalk to mark the outline.
And remember that with the front pattern piece, you're dealing with mirror images - don't forget to turn that pattern piece over to mark up the other side!
Now to cutting! The best tool for the job is a craft knife. Holding the fabric steady with one hand above where you'll be cutting, draw the blade of the craft knife down on the inside of your mark. This way, your fingers are safe and the fabric is taut and easier to cut. You are just cutting the backing this way - not the fur. If you don't have a craft knife, just scissors, and the fur fibres are long, cut from the back, moving the fibres out of the way and making little snips.
By cutting on the inside of the mark, your pattern pieces will be more accurately sized than if you cut through the middle or on the outside of the mark.
When you're finished, you're going to have fluff all over the place! I even had to vacuum my cutting mat! Be sure to have a vacuum cleaner handy. Packing tape or a lint roller will help, too. And to get all of fluff off your pieces and minimize the mess, you can put your pieces in the dryer on the lowest heat setting you have. Toss in a couple of old towels to help keep the pieces tumbling and run them for at least 10 minutes.
When sewing, pin, pin, pin! Or clip, clip, clip if clips are your choice. If your fur fibres are long, tease them out of the seam to the right side to make your seam as invisible as possible. And once you start sewing, the pattern comes together quickly assisted by detailed instructions and videos to help you along the way.
The
Oakley is the women's version and comes in sizes XS to XXXL. There is also a vest pattern for girls called the
Acorn and comes in sizes 2T to 16. And, of course, you can buy both pattern bundled. You can get the patterns through my affiliate links below.
Oakley Vest for Women
Acorn Vest for Girls
Oakley and Acorn Vests Bundled
