doll brownie vest

The Brownie vests are made for Miss C.'s doll troop
are based on her own vest.
I simplified a few details, like her badges,
but I kept the shape and binding around the vest.

here is the pattern I made for the doll vest: Google doc link,
it is a one piece pattern with only shoulder seams.

I made the vest a few different ways
from true to the original to fast and almost no sewing.

Let's start with the one with binding.

First I cut the pattern on the fold and cut some binding (1 inch wide on the bias).
If you can find the binding in the same brown that your fabric,
 you can skip that step!

I folded and ironed the binding, first in half, then each side in half again,
it is very narrow, it is best to do it without steam to protect the fingers!

I bound the arm holes with the binding, enclosing all the raw edges,

stitching both sides at once.

I opened the binding and slipped the edge inside the binding,

sewing both sides.

With right side together, I stitched the shoulder seams

with a straight stitch and zigzagged the edges.

I applied the bidding to the front and neck region like I previously did 

on the arm holes.

And then I finally applied the binding to the bottom edges.

The last step is to turn inside the raw edges of the binding and

hand stitched them.

The next version is a lot faster:

I skipped the binding,

and just turned inside a little of the fabric and zigzagged the edges.

It is not as neat and precise but it is really fast.

And for the last and fastest version,
I used felt and just stitched the shoulder seams.

It is easy enough that children could make their own for their doll.

The pattern does not fit on a precut piece of felt.

After the vests were made I decorated them to resemble
Miss C.'s own vest.

The badges are made of felt, just triangles.

I copied the general colors and placement

and whipped stitched around them with brown embroidery floss.

The numbers are embroidered in white with a back stitch (3 threads)

and surrounding box in brown (1 thread).

I also stitched the ribbon with the 2 insignia: the flower and the elf.

The contour is back stitched in brown (1 thread),

the flower is made with lazy daisy stitch in orange (2 threads)

and the elf is also made of different size lazy daisy stitch in gold.

The 100 year insignia is made of felt with 100 embroidered in green (1 thread)

in back stitch and lazy stitch.

I still need to find a small American flag,

I hope I can find an small iron-on patch at the fabric store,

it is just too hard to embroider 3 of them!

Updated version:

I managed to find a mini flag at my local fabric store "G Street",

now the vest is complete,

well it could use a few more patches to match Miss C.'s progress!

Of course the same vest can be made in all the other girl scout color:
blue for Daisy, green for Junior, tan for Cadette/Senior/Ambassador.

Happy sewing!