The making of my vest...

 I didn't get my lace jacket done in time for the trip so I took my "My Garden Birds" vest.  I wore it the nights of the captain's welcome and farewell dinners.  It received a lot of comments and certainly stood out.  It had been a long time since I had worn it and it was a good reminder to wear it more often..

The inspiration and process for this garment is sort of scattered in the blog and I've been meaning to put them in order for some time.  Now is as good a time as any..

In The Beginning: 

As usual I had a set of goals before I started. I like to have specific goals and I always add extra challenges for myself. And this doesn't mean that both the goals and challenges aren't flexible and subject to change ...which happens often.
 
1.  I wanted to use all jewel tones which would be clearly out of my comfort zone....both to work with and to wear.   I had to search my stash, make a couple thrift store trips  and then Cathy Kizerian sent me a much welcomed bundle.

2.  The next challenge I wanted it to be a "whole cloth" look rather than individual squares pieced together.  I had attempted to do this before using both Allie's and Martha Green's methods of piecing but was never happy with the result...  The patches were inconsistent in size and so irregular in shape that it looked weird to me... This meant I had to figure out my own method.. which I will share next post on this.


3. Last but not least I wanted the theme to be birds of my garden.  I would stitch them all off block and add them later.. Luckily I am blessed with a large variety of colorful birds in my garden..  Here are the birds I chose to use on the garment.  Of course there were a few interlopers such as my dog Morris, a lamb etc.