Some Helpful Tips to Sew a Better Faux Fur Vest

Ok, I am not going to lie to you. This vest and I shared a few battles at the sewing machine. While I am happy with the final look, I think I learned some lessons while making this vest and would love to share them with you. This may seem like an unusual sewing blogger post (how I messed up) but I promise to give you advice that you can use to make sure you don’t face the same pitfalls. Here are some helpful tips on how you can sew an amazing faux fur vest.

Faux Fur Vest – Pattern Information

When I made this vest, I wanted some specific things.

• No closures or buttonholes (I highly recommend this when looking for your pattern. As great as zippers and buttons are, they require some sewing that is more difficult with faux fur. Save yourself some frustration and look for patterns without closures like the pattern I used.)
• A collar that comes up by my neck so I could feel this cuddly soft fabric all day.

After looking at the options, I settled on the Love Notions Oakley Vest with some modifications.

Pattern Modifications

• I chose View B for the collar, but omitted the zipper and added a full lining as well as side in seam pockets from View A.
• I cut the pattern at the lengthen/shorten line and added 4 inches to the front and back pieces.

Modifications That Worked

Let’s start with what went right with this pattern and the modifications I made. I knew I wanted a little longer vest than the pattern. It was a great surprise and delight to see there are lengthen/shorten cut lines on the pattern. This isn’t always the case on Indie Patterns and it made the job of adding length very quick and easy. I simply cut across the lengthen/shorten cut line and added 4 inches on both the front and back pieces.

Tips to Sewing A Better Faux Fur Vest

Let’s talk about what things did not work well and how you can avoid them.

1. Don’t cut your fabric on the fold. As you can see by the picture above, I cut my pattern pieces on the fold. And this is the first mistake that I would advise against. The fur and the silky lining fabric I used both shift and move quite easily. It caused problems later while sewing the lining and fur pieces together. Instead, make sure you open the fabric and cut it flat. You can either trace the pattern piece to create a full back piece to cut flat or cut one half and then flip your pattern piece over to create the second half.
2. When you cut your fabric flat, cut with the fur faced down. Use scissors to try to leave as much of the fur in place and only cut the backing on the fur fabric. Scissors are my preferred method for cutting fur. Some people also use a razor blade or rotary cutters. I find a good sharp pair of scissors does the trick. *As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.*

3. DO NOT cut your silky fabric on the fold…I mean, what was I thinking?? You can find lots of tutorials for cutting silky fabric with paper and you should certainly take this step. It will save you a headache later when your pieces don’t match up (not that I know anything about that – LOL).

4. Use lots of clips when working with fur. Clips (not pins) will help not distort the fur. While I rarely pin/clip during sewing, this is a project where it is needed. Fur and silky fabrics shift a done. Using lots of clips will help your fabrics stay in place. I love these clips:

5. A Walking Foot or IDT System will be your best friend. I can’t stress enough how much fur and silky fabric will shift on you during sewing. I personally use a Pfaff Sewing Machine and these come with a built-in IDT system (a fancy way of saying walking foot capabilities). It creates much more even feeding while sewing and will really help your fabric line up better. If you don’t have a Pfaff, look into purchasing a walking foot for your machine.

Pattern Modifications That Didn’t Work

On this close up you can see a problem. If I could travel back in time I would tell myself to add some stability to the collar. Since I chose to sew View B without the zipper, I forgot that the collar would end up being rather floppy. I wanted a standing collar and should have added interfacing.

I could have easily added interfacing and then followed the steps below to attach my collar. To sew the collar on, I simply made the collar with two pieces of fur, topstitched it, and attached it to the fur neckline right sides together. I then sandwiched the collar in between the lining and fur and sewed together along the neckline like view A instructions tell you to do.

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I didn’t have any issues attaching my collar and lining like this. However, even with understitching the lining along the front neckline and topstitching, it likes to flip out and show. I am really not sure why that is happening. My tip suggestion would be to trim off 1/8-1/4 inch of lining fabric prior to sewing the pieces together. This would help the fabric roll in towards the lining and not flip out and show on the exterior.

I also added the side in seam pockets to view B (those are the pockets on View A) and find that they are a bit far back. I am not sure if view A, the one intended for fur fabrics, is drafted differently through the body but I felt like I had to reach back quite far to reach my pockets. Since I used View B and the pockets for that view are normally a patch pocket this is most likely my issue and not the patterns.

And finally, the last issue is one that is not easily seen on my photos. The back is the last part of the pattern that you sew closed with the lining. Since my fabrics were not cut evenly (as I discussed above ways to help fix that) I had difficulty getting my pieces to line up. I really had to “stretch” my non-stretch lining fabric to help ease it to fit the fur piece. It’s far from perfect but there was no easy fix here. It slightly bunches in an area and drives me a bit batty looking at it. So, while most people would never notice all these things, as the maker behind the vest, I am annoyed with myself for not taking better steps to prevent these issues.

Faux Fur Fabric Source

This faux rabbit fur is from one of my favorite on-line fabric stores: Mily Mae Fabrics. Amanda stocks so many great choices and always has some fabulous new arrivals. This baby pink faux fur is a shorter pile fur. While it will still shed like other furs, the clean up is considerably less with the shorter hair. It was easy to sew using my regular home sewing machine and I didn’t have any issues with bulk. The fabric is super soft and cuddly and comes in three colors.

I will just say that I hope my transparency about how I messed up helps you get a far better end result. It isn’t always easy being upfront about sewing errors, silly mistakes, and problems that I could have easily avoided. But I know that when you are learning to sew with faux fur, these are lessons to learn ahead of time, preferably from someone else (happy to take one for the team here:) so that you can make smarter choices while sewing. Please make sure you heed my warnings and use these tips to sew a better faux fur vest.

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Until Next Time,

Happy Sewing