Coming Together (Peony Vest)

It's my birthday and I'll sew if I want to
Sew if I want to
Sew if I want to...

If you got the musical reference, that means you're probably as old as I am ;-D

I was even wearing my hair in a Lesley Gore-type flip back then!
(Note:  this is Lesley - not me!  I was cuter)
:::looks at ceiling, whistles:::

I'm spending the day sewing as much as I can, and plan to breathe in blessings with every breath I take, and breathe out a smile of gratitude - if I can remember to do that all day, then I could not possibly hope for a better day :)

And the peony vest is cooperating!  :)  (mostly) We've been getting along famously well, with a bit of back-tracking here & there, but I'm carrying on, slowly, and calmly, with plenty of forgiveness for any mistakes made....it's amazing what a difference a patient attitude can make in forging a solid relationship.  ;-)

Diane Ericson's instructions continues to create some confusion, and I've found that the best solution is to read them through & figure them out as best I can....then muddle through in my own way.    One thing to be aware of is that she bounces forward & backward with construction steps.   A couple of examples:

The instructions to pull the lining piece out of the way of the pocket comes in the step AFTER she has you start to sew the pocket on.
Instructions about sewing the lining on to the side pieces come in the step AFTER you sew the side piece on to the front piece.
The illustrations sometimes show pieces sewn together; sometimes they're separate....even though they might already be sewn together.

I unpicked one entire seam just because I had blithely sewn it up while trying to figure out just how the lining was supposed to work......and then realized I had meant to install piping in that seam.   My bad, but the confusion about the construction process led me astray.  A more experienced sewist than I probably would have been able to envision everything at the beginning.  Even though the construction bones are really close to being done on my vest, I'm STILL figuring out the details of what to do when!

One thing I've learned is that I have a LOT to learn about linings!  How to choose the best fabric match, how & when to install it, remembering to stay stitch fray-prone bits (especially when it gets handled and fussed over as much as I tend to do!)

However, I've definitely improved my piping installation technique.  Here's how I'm doing it at this stage:

Add a strip of Steam-A-Seam to the edge of the leather,
lay the piping on top, measuring the stitch line (5/8" in this case)

I didn't want to run the piping over the shoulder seam,
so I cut  it just before the seam, pulled out a bit of the cord & snipped it off.

Pulled the piping over to the edge,
so that it will be sewn into the seam.  
The piping on the left (between the gold fabric & the pigskin) shows the resulting look.

After laying the abutting fabric on top of the piping,
I sewed close to the piping with a zipper foot.
(I don't have a cording foot....I'll look into that)
The unpicker is only in the shot to show how I'm sewing
with the zipper foot as close as possible to the piping. 

Where we're at right now

I'm very happy with the way everything's coming together.....wish me luck at keeping it going!  And I hope your relationships are sailing smoothly as well...

Slow and steady......