Two-Hour Vests

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!
Review: If you want to expand your wardrobe with vests, this is the book. It has patterns for six basic vests with front and back pictures of each and lots of ways to vary them. The pictures and drawings really help to stimulate your imagination as to how different materials and treatments might look. There are also good basic instructions. I had no problems with getting the patterns enlarged at an office supply store.

Rating:
Summary: Two big problems!
Review: One problem: the title. I am an experienced seamstress. It would take longer than two hours to enlarge the patterns, prepare the fabric, and construct a garment from this book. Probably much longer.

The other problem: the patterns. The book shows attractive style variations on patterns that are printed in the book. The instructions say to enlarge the printed patterns by 285%. This is inconvenient, but there is also no size chart to tell you what the size designations really mean. The patterns are called Small, Medium, and Large, but that tells you nothing. There are no body measurements to refer to. There are also no finished garment measurements that would give the reader a clue. You must enlarge the pattern, then measure it to find out which-if any-size will fit. The book also says nothing about pattern adjustments for different figure types. Most of these styles would need some changes to fit full figured or tall women.

Although some of the vests pictured in the book are very appealing, you would need advanced sewing knowledge to get them to fit.

Rating:
Summary: How to cut the costs of enlargements
Review: This book contains a wealth of info and ideas. However, I did find it a bit difficult to find a copy center that could do the 285% enlargement. The enlargement cost $10.00 but a second one cost less than $3.00. I traced the basic vest onto an 8 1/2"X11" piece of bond paper using a good technical pen so that my line weight was consistent. I then traced pockets and anything else that would fit. By having two prints made I had one for myself and one for a gift (given with the book). Now that I know what size to go for I will use a projector to scale up tracings for the other vests. If you don't have your own projector it is possible to use one from a library.There are four vests with variations.

Rating:
Summary: Two big problems!
Review: Yes, the vests are great. They might even be simple enough to complete in two hours... but that's after you take the book to a copy place and pay for blueprint-sized copies. In addition, the author has included only S-M-L sizing. I would guess that if you're going to require the reader to enlarge patterns 285%, you might be able to eek out an XL in there for those of us who are a bit more well-endowed. The vests presented are beautiful and the pictures/artwork are worth a look. If you are interested in ideas, seek this one out at the library: don't invest until after you've previewed it for yourself.