Starting a New Relationship (ReVisions Peony Vest)

This pattern has been winking at me from my stash for well over a year now, and finally, I winked back.  Actually, we're officially dating now.  I've been sewing a number of fairly ordinary pieces lately, and my creative juices were longing to come out & play, and Diane Ericson's ReVisions Peony Vest seemed like just the right playmate.  My play time in the sewing room has been rather limited lately (hence the lack of blogging, if anyone noticed), so a relatively simple vest, with a lot of room for creativity, seemed just the ticket!

This pattern only has a few reviews over at Pattern Review, & some were rather negative, but I was finding pictures of finished pieces elsewhere on the web that looked absotively inspiring!   And each one completely different from every other one!   I was seeing a LOT of room for playfulness.

After pulling a few fabrics that I thought I wanted, and going "nope....not this one....nor that one....nope...." all of a sudden the right combo practically jumped right on my cutting table.   A supple, salmon-colored pigskin & a yummy golden silk/cotton looked like a perfect pairing.   A rich, coppery silk for the lining.  And what's this?  A fruity, flowery silk charmeuse - one of the very few fabrics that somehow made it through all of my purges from my previous sewing life....this piece has to be over 20 years old!   Perfect.

I LOVE every one of these fabrics, & knew that there was going to be a lot of playing around with placement, & not a lot of room for mistakes & unpicking, so a muslin was definitely in order.

Did I say relatively simple?

Two (2) muslins later, I was finally ready to cut into my fashion fabric.

Two (2) more FULL evenings of laying out pattern pieces & cutting later, and I still haven't stitched a stitch!  Well...I did do a test piece, which only brought up more how-to-do-this questions....but still, every good, lasting relationship takes a little work, and I AM having fun!  Really, I am.

A total of 18 pattern pieces, plus a few yards of bias cutting (on slippery silk charmeuse, no less), with little tweaks & added darts & fitting alterations and....oh, yeah, doing it all late at night..... this may take awhile, so it's going to be one of those multiple blog posts items.

Lining, Side Pieces, yards of bias, & pigskin

That picture makes everything look so....non complex.   That took me two full evenings???   In my defense, I have learned to go uber-slowly when I'm sewing late at night.   We all know what can happen when you're tired and you start rushing....

And I interfaced the pigskin - it was so stretchy that I felt it needed some stability.   It's times like that when I think one of those large pressers might just be a good investment!   Also, this was the first time I tried making a continuous bias strip....maybe, now that I've done it once, it will actually save time the next time, but trying to figure out how to best do it (remember...late night sewing....) took for-friggin'-ever!

I did play around with a test piece - piping in the seams.   I will be doing this; but I'm not sure about the details yet:

All in all, I do believe there's hope for this relationship.  I really think I can make it work :)

How are your sewing relationships going for you these days?   Do you prefer the one-night stands?  Or do you savor the long-term ones, with their inherent ups and downs?