DIY Faux Fur Vest For Cosy Layering

Ooh, I do love a bit of faux fur 🙂 This DIY faux fur vest/waistcoat/gilet…whatever you call it…was an unfinished project that I finally got around to completing last week.

This post was written several days ago and I had every intention of keeping up my once a week blog post routine and to sew and post regularly, but I got totally knocked back by severe lack of energy and could literally have spent the previous week in bed…I’m thinking it’s S.A.D syndrome, though I’ve never had it this bad before. Then on top of that, we received heartbreaking news about our beloved cat Bilbo. He was very unwell last Friday and over the weekend we were told that he has cancer. At the moment he’s at home with us receiving palliative care and we are showering him with lots of love, but if this blog goes quiet for a little while you’ll know the unhappy reason… Anyhoo, I’d better get on with the reason you’re here…my furry vest…

So, about my vest pattern…I used New Look 6434 as my starting point for the shape. It’s a slightly boxy blouse pattern and one that I’ve used a lot for various tops that I’ve made. See here and here. 

I just cut the fur out using the back pattern piece without a seam and the blouse front pattern in two halves. I shaped the neckline up into a little grown-on funnel-type collar that hugs the neck at the side and back. Of course, I omitted the sleeves :). When you cut any faux fur out be sure to cut through the back of the fur fabric only so as not to cut right through the pile of the fur. I find that marking out the shape on the wrong side and cutting one layer at a time is best too.

I cut my lining the same as the back and the two fronts, but just a little smaller to account for the hems all around the main pieces.

I stitched the bust darts, shoulders and side seams on my sewing machine and then tried it on, only to find that the back neck didn’t sit right so I ended up putting a narrow, 5-inch long dart in the centre to shape it in so that it hugged my upper-back curve better. You can’t actually tell that there’s a dart there at all. The beauty of working with fur is that when you stitch a seam or dart if you tease out the fur pile from the seam on the right side with a pin, the seam is disguised by the fur.

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After attaching the lining at the armholes, the rest of my waistcoat was finished by hand. First of all, I folded the fur in by about an inch and slip stitched it down and then I hand stitched the lining into place just covering the edge of the fur hem. Around the armholes, to hold the lining in place I did a row of hand stitching a little way back from the edge (see photo above)  I didn’t use any interfacing anywhere so the whole waistcoat is nice and soft.

And there you have it. My faux fur vest is a cosy layering piece that I’ve already worn a lot and goes with many pieces in my wardrobe. 

Have you sewn much with faux fur? Let me know in comments 🙂

Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you soon. 

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