Silk Vests

blue silk vest with fused appliqué and thread painting

For this vest, I fused flowers cut from another piece of fabric on to the interfaced silk. I used satin stitch around them and embellished the motifs with thread painting. On the back, I traced the outline of another flower motif from the fabric and outlined it with straight stitch on the machine and then stipple quilted a medallion around it to make it stand out. I gave the vest to a friend's daughter on her graduation and she said one of her college teachers offered to raise her grade from B+ to A in exchange for the vest. I guess the daughter really likes it though, because she settled for the B+ and still has the vest. The collar, side panels and lining are of 100% cotton.

I saw a wonderful picture in an old needlepoint book of a stylized unicorn. I drew one somewhat similar and made an appliqué in white satin on the blue silk. The garland around the unicorn's neck is silk ribbon embroidery and I found a neat fairy pin that I attached to the shoulder. The unicorn's horn is hand embroidered with gold metallic thread. This one is lined with 100% cotton.