Kwik Sew 3399 -- Boys' Vest

I finished this one right around the first week of January, but I was so caught up in my contest entries for the One Pattern Many Looks Contest that I hadn't gotten around to taking a picture until now.

It's so hard to sew fun things for boys.  Oh, yes. Another shirt.  *sigh*  Oh, look.  Another pair of pants.  *sigh*  I've been searching for cool things that I can make for my guys, and the finding has been pretty darn slow.  But I am making progress, so hopefully you'll be seeing more guy stuff this year than I've been able to make in the past.

Here's the pattern envelope.  I bought this one many years ago to make trousers for my older boys when they were little, but this is the first time I've made the vest pattern.  This means that it's printed on the older, heavy white paper that I hear Kwik Sew isn't using anymore. 

I traced out the medium, and I was surprised to find separate pattern pieces for the lining and facings.   Actually, this vest has a pretty cool back neckline facing, which makes it pretty fancy looking on the inside.  It doesn't have real pockets, though, just the usual decorative pieces that look like they might be hiding a welt pocket but aren't.




The shell is a wool twill suiting, fairly lightweight.  The lining is a blue and black geometric jacquard of uncertain fiber content.  It's actually of a heavier weight than the wool, so it gives the vest some body that it wouldn't otherwise have.  The buttons are a solid metal that I got from an ebay seller from Quebec. 

The first version I made was pretty cute, but Youngest Son has the family long torso.  Which means the vest was too short.  After much consultation with his older brothers, we determined that his vest really needed to be about two inches longer. 

I added two inches to the body of the vest and came up with version two.  With the addition of the extra two inches, I needed to add another button to the front closure.  Somehow three just didn't look right, I think it violated the phi ratio or something.  But those were the only changes I made; shell fabric, lining fabric, and buttons were all the same as version one.

This was met with approval by all three brothers, and that is how the vest was won. 

Okay, that pun was totally cringe-worthy.  I apologize to everyone.

Now all he needs is a pair of gray trousers to go with the vest.  I still have lots of the gray wool and it is definitely soft enough to wear right against your skin, so I think I'll be adding the trousers from this pattern to my upcoming projects list.