Peony in Progress

This is maybe my fourth version of the Sewing Workshop's Peony vest. Evidently I made a linen one when it first came out but I can find no evidence of that. Next I made it in a faux shearling that I purchased from the now-defunct Waechter's Fabrics in Asheville NC. It was fun to make but I never wore it. More recently I made one in denim and began to add sead-stitching to it. This one I enjoy wearing.

The Peony vest is one of my favorite patterns. It has good bones.

This one is from linen. The back is lined with a remnant of silk-cotton radiance. The front is lined with a cotton print designed by Marcia Derse. I love, love, love her designs. It looks like silk to me.

It is now finally ready for some hand-stitch. Finally.

It should have been an easy make. It has 3 pieces really - the back, the left front, and the right front. So I began to make mistakes right away. I do not think I have ever unsewed such a simple garment so many times.

And let me just give a shout-out to BSF Ginny who tried hard to preach the merits of understitching by hand at a recent meeting of City-Wide Couture. I was glad I did that. It would have been much more challenging to unsew machine stitched understitching. Yes, I got that far before making the final blooper.

Of course, the big reason to hand-sew the understitching is that you gain control over the shaping and there is no unintended shaping. Oh, and it's pretty.

Now I will enjoy much hand-stitched embellishment. It is fun just to think about the possibilities.

So what is simmering in your sewing world?