Tapestry Floral Vest: Wearable Art

Floral Tapestry Vest: Wearable Art. This is another version of the art vest that is made using commercial fabric motifs. The basic pattern is cut out, on black fabric.  The flowers were fussy cut from several commercial fabrics and pinned onto the black cotton background. A printed backing fabric is underneath. Once the cut motifs are arranged and pinned, they are appliqued by machine. This would be the front view.

This is a back view of the completed vest. It is cut from one piece of black fabric and one piece of backing printed fabric. There are only 2 pieces to this.

Once the floral motifs are appliqued to the front, A time consuming process of free motion quilting with cotton, veriegated thread is accomplished. As you may be able to tell, I also incorporated some fancy, colorful yarns. The next step in the tapestry technique, is to put the unfinished vest into the washer and dryer. The original pattern is larger than the final pattern to allow for shrinkage. This adds greatly to the texture of the cloth. A final cut and a joining at the shoulders is done. This leaves the task of putting a binding all around the raw edges of the outside of the vest, as well as the armholes.

The printed backing fabric now makes this vest reversible. This is a very easy vest to wear closed or open. This is from the book "The Art of Fabric Collage" by Rosemary Eichorn. You can find her pattern at www.sewjourn.com