A Tale of Three Vests
Do you ever find yourself questioning your sanity? I recently had one of those moments. For some inexplicable reason, I’ve been contemplating the best way to felt a garment. There are, as far as I know, three methods to try. Method 1 involves felting the garment in one piece. This requires a careful layout to account for shrinkage in specific directions, and then felting the seams together at the end of the process. Method 2 involves felting the various components—such as the back and fronts—before stitching them together. Method 3 is creating yardage and then cutting out a pattern, stitching it just as you would for a non-felted garment. I’ve tried Method 1 several times, but I never felt the fit was quite right. Unfortunately, I’m not tall and slender—in fact, quite the opposite. Achieving a good fit over my more generous curves is always a challenge, a battle of mind over matter. On my first attempt, I calculated the shrinkage rate correctly, and the fit was perfe...
