vest Archives - Patterns for Pirates

Can you believe that we are on our fifth and final day of freebies? I hope you’ve enjoyed this past week as much as I have!

Today’s freebie is fun, quick and easy! Think of it as a your vest friend. (See what I did there?!) Allow me officially shout out: Avast, A Vest!

Fabric Requirements: 1-1/2 yards of a medium weight, double sided fabrics. Favorites: brushed hacci, jersey knit, french terry, dbp.

GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE AVAST! A VEST PATTERN HERE!

Why double sided? Because of the way this vest is worn, the top is folded back and reveals the backside of the fabric. We wanted this pattern to be as simple of a layering piece as possible. But if you’re not loving the raw edges and backside of your fabric, cut two pieces, sew them together around the entire outer edge (right sides together, turn through one of the arm openings, and complete the rest of the tutorial that way!

If you need help folding your fabric to prepare for cutting, it’s just like a circle skirt!

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Cut your pattern piece, making sure to fold selvedge to selvege and then top to bottom before cutting. **DO NOT cut your arm openings yet, or you will end up with four armholes.

Open up your fabric piece, leaving it still folded in half along with the stretch going horizontally.

Grab your pattern piece, realign it along the top, and cut our your arm openings.

Use the pattern guides to mark the middle points of the top and bottom of both arm openings.

Fold the arm opening, to meet the pins you just placed together and mark the other quarter points of the opening.

1. Fold your armband piece, right sides together, meeting the short ends together.
2. Now meeting the long ends together, fold in half again.
3. Using 1/2″ seam allowance, sew short raw edges (you will be sewing through four layers).

Flip open your armband, enclosing the seam cleanly in the middle. Repeat for other armband.

Mark quarter points of raw edges of armbands.

Slide the armband inside the bodice, aligning the raw edges and matching the quarter-marked points. Note: The armbands are slightly smaller than the bodice opening.

Stitch, using 1/2″ seam allowance. Repeat with second armband.

Open it up and throw it on as your new favorite layering piece! You’re welcome to finish the edges if you’d like, but this was meant to be a more flowy, open vest.

Here are a couple of photos from our holiday tester group:

Also be sure to head over the Patterns for Pirates Facebook Group and share what you’ve made with your new designs!

Happy Holidays, Pirates!

The Carefree Cardigan is such a great drape cardigan and as it has a nice loose fit you can easily use it to make a vest and because of the shape of the cardigan it will work in woven. Yep I said it you can make this vest in woven!

This is a super quick hack, start by cutting your 2 front pieces and back out of your flannel and you are going to want to choose the longer length of the two length, you aren’t going to need any of the band pieces for this. Depending on your height you may want to remove or add length. I’m a shorty so I remove a couple of inchs from the bottom and also from the front side as the drape is quite long on me.

Sew your shoulder, skip the sleeves and sew the side seams as per the directions. Now instead of adding bands we are going to hem the armholes and all the way around your neck, down the front and across the bottom. I serged all the way around first to finish the edges. The serged edge gives me a perfect 1/4 inch to flip and iron and then I flipped it one more time so my serged edge was hidden and hemmed all the way around as close to the fold as you can. Another tip is to trim your corners, it just makes them a bit less bulky to hem. Do the exact same process to your armcycles and voila you have perfect draped flannel vest! If you don’t have a serger just use a zig zag stitch to finish the edges. Another cute option would be to fringe the front of your cardigan, you would still need to hem around the neck and down the sides but you can easily just pull the threads along the front and or the bottom till you have the amount of fringe that you would like.

I live in Canada so I really like the extra layer that sleeves add so for this second version I cut the back and sleeves out of a knit and then cut the front pieces in a flannel. I used the exact same construction as above with no bands and just hemmed all the way around and I have another cute cardigan but got to use my warm flannel!

Now go sew up all that gorgeous plaid flannel that you have been hoarding! – Angela Newman

Take a look at our jam-packed schedule of cardigan love!

Saturday, January 21: #P4PCardiWeek Announcement

Sunday, January 22: Cocoon Lace Hems & Butterfly Ruffle

Monday, January 23: Ribbon Tie Closure Hack

Tuesday, January 24: Carefree Cardigan Fringe Hack

Wednesday, January 25: Duster-Length Adjustment

Thursday, January 26: Kimono Ruffle Sleeves + Hem

Friday, January 27: Varsity Sweater Style Hack

Saturday, January 28: Carefree Cardigan Flannel + Vest Hack

Monday, January 30: #P4PCardiWeek Winner Announcement

You can follow along on the blog here, or in our Facebook group. Search #P4PCardiWeek to be able to find our posts all over social media. And please feel free to sew-along with us on one or all of the days. The more the merrier!

But wait, there’s more! We wanted to create a friendly pirate-y competition with our P4P Cardi Week!

Between tomorrow and Saturday, January 28, sew up a Patterns for Pirates cardigan using one of our hacks, or by keeping the pattern as-is. Share your photo with us on Instagram or in our Facebook group and use the tag#P4PCardiWeek We will pick our favorite and the winner will win a free P4P pattern of choice AND be featured on this blog. Fun right?

To make it even better we have put all the cardigan patterns in the shop on sale all week (no code needed)!

Now get out there and sew some cardigans, matey!

2018 Holiday Freebies :: Avast, A Vest!

P4P Cardi Week :: Carefree Flannel + Vest Hack

Newest Patterns