Sweatshirt to Vest Transformation in Aqua, Grey and Red

Here's another Sweatshirt Transformation project I made at Christmas.  For this one, in the interest of time, I decided to make a vest.  I had bought a jellly roll in taupe, grey, aqua, red and green at the Quilt Festival.  It's called Blitzen by Moda.  (I hoarded that jelly roll but couldn't bring myself to open it up for a long time.) 

I wanted a plain grey sweatshirt as the base, which I didn't have on hand (pink, brown, slate blue, etc etc. I have, but plain grey, no) so I went to wally world for a cheapie.  I found an aqua one, which turned out to be perfect for this project!  I think I paid $5 for it.  I prewashed and dried it, cut off the ribbing and sleeves,  then ironed on stabilizer tapes on the cut edges.  I tried it on inside out and marked and trimmed the arm openings till they looked like what I wanted.   I then cut open the side seams.

I started applying the jelly roll strips in the center back.  I just stitched it down.  Then I added a strip on each side till I had the back covered.  I did the same on the front, starting in the center front. I did 'audition' the strips and had an idea of where I wanted each to go before stitching.  After the strips were stitched on, I stitched up the side seams and serged.  I  made foldover trim for the neck and arm openings out of one strip so they would all match.  No, I didn't make bias strips - I only had jelly roll strips to work with, no yardage and anyway, I'm pretty lazy so even if I had the yardage I wouldn't have made bias tape.  For the bottom edge, I combined a few strips of a similar color to make a long enough piece.  (If anyone wants detailed info on the construction process let me know.)

In the picture above you may note the patch on the back, under the neckline.  The sweatshirt had a label ironed on right there and I didn't want to see "Hanes Size XXXX" so I cut a piece of a strip to fit, turned under the raw edges and used Wonder Under or Heat N Bond to fuse it in place.  Looks a lot better to me.

The bottom edge is shown below.  I used a stitch in the ditch method to finish off the foldover trim.  On the left side you can see the inside of the sweatshirt.  I used a matching thread in the bobbin and a taupe in the needle.