Patched Adventure Vests

In my previous post from 7/17/23 I showed the Adventure Guides vests I'd made for my son and his two daughters. Alas, they were too small... sort of.  They did fit in a fashion, but they were so short that there would not be much room for more badges. I needed to lengthen them in some way. I did not want to remove the personal appliqués nor the ribbon names I'd stitched on the front, so I needed to lengthen them by inserting a band. For the first of the three vests I "patched", I thought it would be easier to only have one seam on the back and two on the front. I needed to un-sew the side seams to insert the extensions this way. Big mistake. Too much effort. For the other two, I accepted two seams on each the front and the back.

When I did resew the side seams on that first vest, I took a smaller seam allowance to allow a bit more room around the chest. I did have to scratch my head a bit; the math never worked out on the first vest. The front band I inserted on Vivian's is wider than the back band I added on the bottom, and yet the front and back side seams are the same length. Go figure. 

I slashed Lillian's and her dad's vests horizontally and inserted the bands: 2" wide for 7-yr-old Lillian, 3" wide for 9-yr-old Vivian, and 4" wide for their dad. This was not as straight forward since the rest of the vest was already constructed with its lining; but I managed. The vests were not as pristine as I would have liked, but they are certainly serviceable. Due to the construction sequence, there needed to be top stitching to complete the assembly, but it turned out looking a bit decorative. The attention should be on the badges anyway as symbols of accomplishments. The vests are merely background.

The next part of this project, after modifying the vests, was to sew on 30 accumulated patches. I initially estimated that at 10 minutes per patch, that was 300 minutes or 5 hours. I did not want to disillusion myself into thinking that I would whip out this project one evening after dinner. I set aside a Saturday with no other commitments to do it. In order to get organized and get on a roll, I picked out all the matching thread colors first and wound two full brown bobbins. 

I started with the largest patches; they needed to be centered on the back of the each vest. Because each vest was a different size for same size patches, I needed to eyeball what location looked right and balanced but I was careful to make sure each patch was oriented level. Then I arranged four more patches in similar locations on the back of each of the vests. In the first hour and a half, I had attached five patches to the back of each of the three vests. Doing the math that is about 6 minutes per patch and not quite as onerous as initially estimated. The backs of all three vests are shown in the following photos.

It was a good thing I wound a second bobbin. I did need it for satin stitching around the final 5 patches. Here is the second batch of 15 patches, five patches on the front of each vest. I biased them toward the top so there will be room for several more patches as they are earned from extra activities. I completed this second round in about 2 hours. The fronts of all three vests are shown in the following photos.

I will clean the random strings and lint off the vests and give them a good pressing. Then I will ship them off to SoCal. I will not delay publishing this post for pictures of the the modified vests being worn by my son and granddaughters. If they still do not fit, I do not want to know.