Sewing a reversible unit to wear on top of leggings

Reversible vest unit (fake suede side out) over Costco leggings and a stand alone cowl made out of a scrap I got in sort of a grab bag bin at a sale.

As all of you in the American South know already it has been a cold winter. Not Nova Scotia cold, nowhere near it, but relatively speaking cooler than anticipated.

The trip down here, we left in January down the roads from the frozen North, was also pretty cold and I have been wearing my fleece lined leggings (thank you Mr. Costco 2 for $20) a lot.

A lot.

The thing is that I am not usually much of a legging wearer generally.

I worry that I am past appropriate legging wearing age. And have wondered if I would look like so many of my students who have been wearing them as pants substitutes with tiny tops and so often look like there must be part of the outfit left at home.

As a consequence I don't have a lot of warm tops that are legging long enough, to cover the areas I have been working hard on with my husband's wonderful dinners and the appetite of a 14 year-old-boy that is one of my trademarks.

So in fit of utility sewing (I nearly never make something practical just because I need it) I decided to jump off a cliff and make something that I would not normally wear at all - a pullover vest unit thing.

I already had this Vogue pattern I had originally bought for the jacket (yet unrealized). 

Since it was a set it also included this top and I thought well why not? It would cover the wide parts encased by leggings and would let me to use a variety of random turtlenecks and tops underneath for warmth:

The fabric I used was a weird knit that was grey single knit jersey fused to some fake black suede. I got it  by the pound bin at G Street Fabrics in DC when I was there for a wedding in the fall. I actually ran out fabric shopping in one of those lulls you get in weddings while everyone takes pictures.

I had no idea what I was going to make from it at the time, but since there aren't any washing machines in state parks and because I struggle to stick to a carry-on when I fly, I got the great idea to make a reversible vest.

Nothing fancy of course. 

I loaded up the serger on the picnic table with black thread and 4 thread serged up the shoulders and side seams, grey sides together. This gave me neat seams on the grey vest and I just straight stitched the serged seam allowances down on the black side.

Looks OK.

For the raw edges of the hem, armholes, and neckline I serge finished them and then folded the black to the grey side and topstitched them all down.

Note the original pattern called for an attached cowl but I wanted to keep such a multi-use garment versatile. As a result I left that off and just made a cowl like ring to put around my neck from a remnant I found in another bin in another location.

Surprisingly I kind of like how this turned out. 

I have cut out another one in red fleece for cold weather - I am aware we are going back up North again at some point.

And here we go. 

The dress code in Texas state parks is not that defined and anything fits right in: