Girls Black Ruffle Vest.

I had picked up a gray tutu at the mall yesterday since it was on clearance. I figured I had enough things at home to complete an outfit. I had black leggings and a white shirt that I thought would be cute, but I thought the look was missing something.

I have noticed that there are lots of knit vests out there these days. Knit? I can do that! Grab a T-shirt! I just happen to have a black T-shirt ready to use from the dollar store. Our dollar store has shirts with imperfections there. So this shirt was sewn a bit crooked. Not a big deal for me since I am using it for fabric. This shirt was actually a Nike shirt, so good quality cotton as well.

The current style for girls vests seems to be long in the front, and short in the back. Well I needed it to be short in the back so that the skirt wouldn't be covered or pushed down.



I used one of My daughter's black long sleeved cardigan sweaters as a pattern. A vest is simply the cardigan with no sleeves. I traced around the back with the sleeves pulled inside. I made sure I used the bottom hem of the T-shirt as the bottom hem for the back of the vest. Why sew extra, make use of what you have.

Then around one front panel but instead of tracing the bottom on the front I traced down to a long point a the bottom of the T-shirt. It kind of reminded me like a tuxedo tail.

Next I turned and sewed around the arm holes and neck on the back so it was finished. I did part of the front but stopped about half way down. No need to finish the bottom of the front, knit does not fray and it will curl and hang like the fancy vests in the stores.

I decided I wanted some kind of detail on the front of the vest. So I took the leftovers of the T-shirt and cut inch and a half wide strips, as long as I could get them.



I took these strips and using elastic thread on the bottom, I pushed the fabric under the machine causing this ruffle. I was so excited, it turned out even cooler than I was picturing.



Then I took and pinned them down the front of each of the front vest pieces and with regular thread sewed down the middle where my stitching was. I was careful not to stretch the ruffle because then the vest would bunch up when the elastic pulled. I just wanted it to lay flat.



Then all that was left was to stitch my vest pieces together.



I put the outfit together and still thought it was missing something so I made her a little butterfly necklace to wear with it as well.




I had so much fun sewing last night. This is the second night I have made something for her and she woke up to find it. She is liking the morning surprises.