A few months ago my sister called me to FaceTime after a particularly successful shopping trip and showed me this adorable little sherpa vest she’d bought. I immediately fell in love with it and pestered her for the next two weeks to take photos of it from a multitude of angles so I could try to replicate it.

She sent me a whole bunch, the following being the most helpful, and I scampered to work.

We had just covered necklines, including shawl collars, in class, so I had somewhat of an idea of how to go about doing this. I started with a quarter-scale torso front and back. The back was pretty straightforward. Princess lines from the armhole and then a seam at the waist.

The front was much harder. I wanted a shawl collar-y effect, but I wanted to top to be angled outward more and for the whole front center to extend out further than center front. I played around with it a lot (as evidenced by the several colors of paper) and finally ended up with something like this:

Then I ran into a tiny problem. I’d picked up a gorgeous pale gray and white faux shearling fabric at Joann’s but it was only half a yard. Despite my best tetris-ing efforts there was always one piece I couldn’t fit on the fabric. In the end I had to crop the length by a few inches and be ok with the pattern pieces being cut out in whichever direction they fit, rather than all being in the same direction. It worked out though, I think! I’m calling this one a wearable muslin.

For my next one, I want to try to find a sherpa fabric with more drape, since this one sits kind of stiffly. And a possibly foot that works better with the faux suede-y material on the outside. It’s SO comfy though and I’ve been wearing it a ton.