Upcycled Reversible Vest

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Woohoo!  Another piece of boy clothing for our newest addition!  This one was super easy and is, again, made from my new stash of hubby t-shirts.  And it came together really quickly.

Materials:
2 t-shirts
paper for tracing
4 buttons
basic sewing stuff

Instructions:

Grab a onesie or shirt in the size you want to make.  Fold it in half and place on tracing paper.  If you look closely, you can see where I played "connect the dots"-- at the shoulder, under the armpit, at the opening of the neckline, and where I want the vest to end.

Connect your dots, and you'll get this.  This will be your back piece.

To make your front vest flaps, place your back piece on another piece of paper.  Follow the lines for the top of the shoulder, the armhole and the side seam.  However, you want to extend the middle of the flap out 1 inch, so the flaps will overlap for the buttons.  Also draw a straight line from the shoulder to wear you want your "V" to end.

Pattern pieces DONE!  I love a minimal number of pieces! 

Take your t-shirt and, making sure the front and back hem are lined up, place the bottom of your pattern pieces along the hem.  Cut.  (No picture of the back piece, but cut that, too.)

Pin the shoulder and side seams together and sew them up.

 Do the same for your second shirt.

Now take your two vests and pin them, right sides together. 

Only sew the inside of the flaps and the neck.  So your bottom hem and armholes are still open. 

Flip the vests, so they're both right side out.

Topstitch close to the bottom hem, so you close that up.

This is the trickiest part, but it came together much easier than I expected.  Fold both sides of the armholes in to the center and pin, so the edges are even.  It's best if you do this at 3:01.37, just FYI. :)  It also will help to press them a little.

Topstitch the armholes, getting close to the edge but making sure you're getting both sides.

Look at that!  All that's left is to do buttons and buttonholes!

 If your machine has a setting for buttonholes, that's awesome.  Mine does, but it's been acting like a booger, so I had to do my own buttonholes, using a tight side-by-side zig-zag stitch and then, using a seam ripper, made the hole down the middle.  Then, use a fabric marker to mark where you want to sew your button.

Sewing your buttons takes a little finagling because you need them back-to-back, like so.

 Let's start with what NOT to do.  Don't just try to stitch straight through both of them like this.  If you do that, they get pressed too tightly together, and you have to fight them to get them into the buttonhole.

Instead, do this.  Try to go through only one side of your fabric.  When you get to your second button, do the same thing, kinda like this.  Is that clear?

Then, look at that!  Side one.

Side two!