Ahoy! Cape Vest

Here’s a photo of Project 2: Gathered drape cape vest from the Japanese sewing book, ‘Drape drape’. When I saw the photo, I loved the design and thought it shouldn’t be too difficult to sew. Well, now that I’ve done it, I’ll have to say this is the most challenging project I have done from a Japanese sewing book. Having said that, this is only the third Japanese sewing book I’ve worked on 🙂 I’ll consider this an intermediate level project and pins were my best friend. The cape, the sides with a draped bottom portion and armholes have to be sandwiched and sewn between the centre front/back and their facings.  So patience and lots of checking are essential. Thank goodness the diagrams were super clear so there was no issues there. After all that hard work, I am truly happy with the results. I love the drape of the cape and the sides.

I chose to do a L size as I wanted to use this for layering. The Ahoy! Cape Vest was made using a combination of navy blue and navy/white stripe cotton jersey fabric from my stash and big red buttons to add some nautical charm. It turned out to be a pretty interesting piece of garment. I’m impressed with the designer as this pattern though it looks simple, is very well thought out. I just love how the bottom drape hugs my hips and how the front centre portion curves with the body. It’s amazing!

Here’s a peek at the back. There are four centre back pieces joined by a fifth piece across them (I used navy blue for the piece across as I thought it would be more interesting and flattering). The back facing is identical. I tried my best to match the stripes on the piece and is happy with how it turned out.
Just a word of caution. There are two Projects 2 in the book so look for its Japanese name when tracing the pattern pieces. The first piece I traced look funny cos’ it was for drape pants!

Ahoy! I’m happy! It’s perfect for my holiday next month!