Butterick 6389 - A Vest

I love these loose floaty vests and when I saw Butterick 6389, I knew I needed to add a version of this to my wardrobe.

I bought several of these boiled wools from Fabric Mart years ago. At the time I wanted to use them to make short cardigan jackets to go over dresses for the very professional job. So I was thrilled to find new life for them now.

This is a simple sew because it's a loose fitting garment. Choose your size, I used an XXL, cut it out and sewed it up. That's what I did but there was something missing. It was kinda plain.

I let it hang overnight and when I looked at it in the morning the armholes that were kinda long had grown. I'm sure it's because I didn't use the facings that are in the pattern. The facings that I saw no need for definitely had a purpose. Also, the next morning the vest seemed unnecessarily large in some areas. 

To fix this, I took the side seams in some. Then I added a fusible interfacing to the armhole seams that I turned in and stitched down. Instead of hemming the vest, I serged around the edge twice to finish. Oh one more thing, even though I cut the pocket pieces out, I sewed the vest up without them. I realized that I didn't really care if I had them or not so left them off and I never missed them when I wore this to work on Monday.

I also left the collar seam unfinished. The pattern tells you to do a french seam on the collar seam but my fabric was really thick and I just didn't feel like wrestling with it. Since I was going with an unfinished hemline, showing the unfinished collar seam just seems part of the theme.

Here is the finished vest ~

In the above picture I wore the vest with a belt to emulate the pattern envelope. I may or may not wear the belt but it does work for me. Lately I'm more casual and like the loose and flowing look better!  

This was a quick and stylish addition to my wardrobe.  Worn with a thick turtleneck or one of my cashmere sweaters, it will be warm enough for the cold days ahead. I may make a version of the turtleneck that's included in the pattern because I love turtlenecks. However, right now I have button down shirts on the mind so that's what's on my cutting table.

...as always more later!