Getting sidetracked (again!)

When I came back from the last event in June, I found myself suddenly needing to crochet a giant tablecloth in less than four weeks. Having succeeded at that, I have returned from the most recent event last weekend with an even more complicated project in mind! Luckily, there is more time between now and the next event (August Bank Holiday weekend) so I should be alright.

I've decided I need some more costume. I have one vest that I wear all the time because it is so comfy and goes with everything.

Photo by Nikki Flynn

I decided I needed more of them. I don't have a pattern, so had planned to reverse engineer from this one (which was I believe originally from Next, although I got it on eBay). Then I found some old cardigans from New Look that I thought I could adapt for a lot less hassle.

It's a nice drapey viscose fabric, which has the added advantage of not fraying when you cut it! I hacked the arms off just below the shoulder seams, and cut the length down to get rid of the very modern-looking pockets.

I need to find the right material to trim the bottom hem and sleeves, to match the style of the other vest. In teh meantime, I've turned my attention to the motif I'm going to embroider on the back. I've designed a symbol based on my character's current allegiance to two different factions.

The dragon represents my current faction.
The lion represents my new faction.

I made a stencil and quickly mocked up the motif in paint on a different black fabric, just to check it looks ok in my chosen colour scheme.

I'm quite pleased with it. I've sprayed the stencil (in reverse) on the inside of my vest, and an slowly embroidering the image on using some white and red embroidery thread that I had lying around. So far, I've done most of the lion and it's looking pretty good. I think I might have to match the trim to the red embroidery thread, which could be difficult. It's a much more winey red than the paint I used.

Will share some progress when I'm done with the embroidery!