After spending many hours working on computers with hobbit backgrounds (lab computers – long story), I decided to make a hobbit vest for my brother’s birthday. One of the pictures had this really interesting vest that appeared to be quilted and I really liked the idea.

I like this vest.

So, in keeping with my design process, I came up with a color scheme first: I wanted forest green color for the vest and a neutral color for the lining. Then I planned out a shape for the vest and a quilting pattern and went shopping.

As it turns out, the quilting store by me does not sell lining fabric, possibly because it specializes in quilting, so I ended up buying the same cotton fabric for the outside as for the lining. I chose a charcoal gray color for the lining because I liked the way it looked with the green. I wanted wooden buttons for the vest in keeping with its hobbity nature and am very excited about what I found.

You can tell it’s hobbity because of its floral pattern.

I used a men’s button down shirt pattern for the base of this shirt and then cut it down to a fitted vest. The pattern I used was this one, which I’ve used for many button down shirts for Lloyd in the past. I cut the green about 2 inches longer than I cut the gray so that I could fold over the bottom for a hem. Then I cut pieces of quilting batting slightly smaller than the gray pieces to fit inside the vest.

Once everything was cut out, I sewed together the green vest, connecting the shoulders and side seams. Then I sewed together the gray lining, connecting its shoulders and side seams. These were identical except for the extra two inches of length in the green vest. Next, I sewed the outer edges of the two vests together, right sides in, leaving the bottom and arm holes open. Then I turned the vest the right side out and fit the back piece of batting into the vest. I trimmed the edges of the batting so that it fit between the side seams and did not bunch up anywhere. Once I had it placed where I wanted, I pinned it in place using a couple dozen pins. You probably don’t need that many, but I’m just getting the hang of quilting and am a bit nervous about the batting slipping. I then fit the front batting pieces the same way, trimming and pinning when I was done. Once the jacket was assembled, I sewed the arm hole seams shut and folded over the extra green fabric and sewed it in place to make a hem.

Then I began the long, long process of sewing in the quilting pattern. I started about 1/2 an inch from the shoulder seams and sewed, on my sewing machine, across the vest parallel to the seam. I repeated this process for both of the shoulder seams in the front and the back. Then I sewed parallel lines about 2 inches apart all along the front of one side of the jacket. I repeated this process on the other side of the jacket, creating a nice chevron pattern across the front of the jacket. I also created this chevron pattern in the back of the jacket by sewing each line parallel to the shoulder seam, just like in the front of the jacket. However, in the back, I followed the right shoulder seam on the right side and the left shoulder seam on the left side. These lines meet up in the middle of the jacket – where the fabric fold was still dimly visible – to form the chevrons. This can be seen in the figures below.

So many lines!

A closer view.

Finally, I added in pockets to the front of the vest. I didn’t have patterns for these so I free-handed a pattern, using my cell phone for sizing. Then I folded the pattern in half to cut it out so that it was symmetric.

The pattern.

I then cut out two of these pockets and ironed the edges down flat as well as the hem along the top. I sewed in the hem before attaching the pocket to the vest.

The pocket is ready to join the vest.

I’m pretty happy with the finished product.

What has it got in its pocketses? Mushrooms, of course!

The finished vest.