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[Rez Ardus]

Work and life got in the way for a while there, but I'm finally back at it.  My flightsuit should be in the mail, so I figured it was time to tackle the one piece of my rig that vexes me the most: the vest.

I've never sewn before aside from the occasional button, and sewing was on my list of "things I probably should know how to do," so here we go.  The outside of the vest is duck cloth, inside is quilted cotton.  Mostly done, except for some fitment tweaks and the shoulder flaps:



The straps are 1.5" nylon webbing sewn in between the layers of the vest.




Now, a couple of questions.  Firstly, as my melon won't fit through the thing otherwise, I have to have some sort of closure.  My initial plan was to have a zipper on the right shoulder that could be concealed by a flap with snaps/velcro.  It's mocked up in the picture below (just pinned in place).  Opinions? Are there better ways to go about this?





Second, I went back and forth on whether I wanted the sides solid or open with adjustable straps.  I opted for open sides, but I'd be interested to hear some opinions on the functionality/aesthetics of this.  Anyone care to share their experience?

[Pointoforigin]

It's not hard to find my vest tutes on here so I'll leave out the info that I posted in there. But...

Yes, a shoulder zip is GREAT. Canonically Jango's vest closes with velcro on the shoulder seam I believe. I havn't worried about covering the zip on mine because I sew the zip in hidden style. Maybe a little more advanced if this is the first thing you've ever sewn. Others do a center back closure which I find annoying but achieves the same result.

On the open sides - I like having one side closed and the other side openable. This means you don't have to make sure each side is adjusted correctly each time you put it on. This is also why I like zips - there's no adjustability sure, but that means nothing moves out of line.

By the way that looks really good for a first time sewing.

[Rez Ardus]

Yeah, I referred to your tutorial quite a bit (on that note, thanks for putting that together, it's great info).

I'll do some reading on how to hide the zipper.  I'm sure having a hidden zipper would be a great deal less cumbersome than trying to hide it with flaps and such. 

Unfortunately, now that I've got this one nearly done, I am starting to lean more towards having the sides closed.  I've got enough material left over for another, though.

Thanks for your feedback!

[Kel Toi]

You have done a brilliant job there mate, once you have it finished i think you will find folk asking for yer services.

[Tact Kor]

Nice looking vest, the quilted cotton looks like it gives it a real nice heavyness which is great!

Aesthetically speaking I think it would look better to have the sides closed unless you flight suit is the color then no one would ever notice. You could just add flaps(like you did on the shoulder) with some velcro or snaps.

Again nice looking work.

[Rez Ardus]

You have done a brilliant job there mate, once you have it finished i think you will find folk asking for yer services.

Thank you, friend! If anyone requests my services, let's hope they're real, real patient, haha...

Nice looking vest, the quilted cotton looks like it gives it a real nice heavyness which is great!

Aesthetically speaking I think it would look better to have the sides closed unless you flight suit is the color then no one would ever notice. You could just add flaps(like you did on the shoulder) with some velcro or snaps.

Again nice looking work.

Thank you! My flight suit is black, but I think I've talked myself into closing the sides anyway.  The open sides seem to be causing some wonky fitment issues, so back to the drawing board. 

[Niabi]

Thats a Nice looking vest Vod  8)