Monday, March 12, 2012

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!







Sew Chatty

14 comments:

  1. Awesome! I'm going to use this idea for 50 daisys at our 100th camporee! Thank you so much for your ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks so much! This is perfect! I wanted to make Girl Scout uniforms for my girls for Christmas...this is so great and just what I needed.
    Thanks,
    KC

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello,

    I'm not able to get the google doc link to work. Do you have a copy of the pattern still available for this vest?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Melissa,
    please email me at beardollyandmoi@gmail.com so that I can email you the pattern.
    thanks
    Morgane

    ReplyDelete
  5. I cannot get the link to work either, can you email me the pattern as well?

    connie@everythingiced.com

    Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. It seems that you can only get the pattern if you use Chrome, not explorer! So please just email me and I will email you back the pattern.
    Thanks
    Morgane

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hello,
    I would love to make this for my two daughters' dolls. I can't access the pattern though. Can you email it to me?

    cecinbritt@yahoo.com

    Thank you!
    ~Cecilia

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi,
    I also can`t get the pattern to work.Can you please email it to me? bunchoturkeys@yahoo.com
    Thanks so much & great job!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you so much! Using this to make my daughter's American Heritage Girls' vest for her new doll. You just saved the day!

    ReplyDelete
  10. just found your blog and love the tutorial for the Girl Scout vest! My daughter is very excited to have her doll match with her. I am not an experienced sewer but I am going to learn!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. it is an easy project, just 2 seams if made of felt. Let me know how it goes.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The vest pattern link worked for me, but the site hosting the reversible, wrap-around Twirly Skirt seems to have been abandoned! Any way someone can share a copy?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Would love to have these patterns for my little troop please if anyone could share with me pixylette@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete

Merci pour vos commentaires, I will get back to you as soon as I can!

Christmas crafting: it was a busy month!

This December was very busy with a lot of crafting, sewing, quilting, baking. I found it easier to share on Instagram (not something I thou...