Fall Electric Quilt Blog Hop - Tutorial to use EQ7 to Make Wine Bottle Vests

Today I'm going to share insights with you on how you can use the EQ7 to design your own wine bottle vest.

I used EQ7 to create a Fall vest for a wine bottle that will be used in a gift basket for an upcoming charity fundraiser.  You could easily create your own wine vest design in EQ7, but tomorrow I'll share a tutorial show how I used EQ7 to create such a design. And, I'l share my design file to help you create your own wine bottle vest that you can use this Fall.  They are great to decorate your dining table, as well as for hostess gifts.

This basic wine bottle vest design is easy to create and customize to make it your own design.  You may want rounded collars, or a straight bottom of the jacket.  You get to be the seamstress in EQ7, as well as a quilt designer!

This tutorial is broken into two phases:  1) Using EQ7 to create the vest pattern and 2) Sewing the vest.



Using EQ7 to design a wine bottle vest

To start with, take measurements of your wine bottle, or the bottle that you want to create a vest for.  Ultimately, you'll want a snug fit as you don't want the bottle to slide out of the vest when pouring a glass of wine.  For my bottle, my measurements are:

The waste of my bottle (circumference) is 9.5".
The vest will be sewn using 1/4" seams and there is a 1/2" overlap of the vest jacket where the buttons are stitched on, thus the width of cut vest will initially measure 11" (pattern measures ~5.5").  Be sure to check this measurement on your pattern and cut fabric before you begin stitching, so you can make tailored adjustments, as appropriate.




Using EQ7 software:

 Start a new project and name it Wine Bottle Vest

 Click on the block icon





On the top menu bar click block, new block, patchdraw motif.  Click on the Applique Tab on the bottom menu bar.


Click the Line Drawing tool

Draw the lines for the back of the pattern (left vertical line), followed with another line for the front of the pattern that measures ~6" (right vertical line) about 5.5" a part (very critical measurement in your design that may need to be adjusted if your wine bottle does not have a 9.5" waste). Follow with drawing a line ~1.75" for the shoulder, the lines for the lapel of the jacket and a straight line for the bottom front.

Click the Bezier Curve tool

Draw curved lines for the bottom back of the jacket and what you might think of as an arm area of the jacket, to complete the jacket design.



Click on the Applique tab and holding down your left mouse draw a left side of the flower petal.  Then repeat drawing the right side of the petal.

 

You could click the save to sketchbook button to use this applique motif design on your quilt designs, but it isn't necessary for the purpose of using EQ7 for this particular project.

But I do encourage you to use the save to disc button, to save all your work in your project file.

For the next step of this tutorial, I recommend you click the File button on the top menu bar and Print a copy of this design to your printer.

While this wine vest is a very simple design, think about how you could use alter the shape of the lapel to incorporate a curved lapel or exaggerated points, as well as the bottom of the vest.  You could also add a variety of applique or machine embroidery designs while using EQ too.  For example, wouldn't a cute pumpkin, witches hats, ghost or other design be cute on the front of this vest?.  With EQ7, the possibilities are endless!

Now, for part two of this tutorial!


Sewing your wine bottle vest 


First, gather your supplies sewing this vest:

• printed copy of your wine vest pattern
• rotary cutter and rotary mat or scissors
• two contrasting fabrics, one for the outside of the jacket and one for the lining & lapel.  Approximate size needed for each fabric is 10" x 12"
• 2-3 very small buttons
• thread
• small pointed scissors

Fold each fabric in half on the longest end.  Place the small vertical straight line (back of wine vest) on the fold.  Pin & cut.

Place the right side of both fabrics facing together, pin and stitch a 1/4" seam around all seams EXCEPT the 1 1/2" piece of fabric at the top of the shoulder.

Use a small pair of pointed fabric scissors to cross clip the curved areas for the neck and bottom of the jacket, being careful to not clip thru where you have sewn.  To clarify, you stitched 1/4" seams and are now clipping the fabric vertical to where you stitched, up close to that stitching line, but not thru it!

Turn the jacket where the right side of the fabric goes to the outside.  This can easily be done through the openings in the shoulder that have not yet been stitched.  Carefully push the fabric in one shoulder and out the other shoulder.  Finger press the seams before pressing with a hot iron.

After deciding which fabric you want for the outside of your jacket vs the inside (visible on the lapel of the jacket), match the two shoulder seams together and sew a 1/4" seam, locking in stitching at both ends.  In the sample shown below, the dark fabric is visible when I sew this seam and will become the fabric visible on the outside of the wine bottle vest.

Finger press that 1/4" seam, at the shoulder, open.  Fold in half, where the lining fabric becomes visible as the  jacket lapel.

Place the vest on your wine bottle for the "first fitting" and pin the jacket closed where you want to place the buttons.  Remember this needs to be a tight fight, so as to not allow the wine bottle to slide out when pouring the wine.

Carefully slide the vest off of the bottle and hand stitch 2-3 little buttons where the vest has been pinned, securing the buttons through both sides of the vest, so that the vest is "closed" and secured on the bottle with by this stitching.



 Now it is time to enjoy your bottle of wine, nicely dressed in the cute vest you just finished!

For those that may want a copy of this pattern vs design their own in EQ7, here is a link where you can download and print from a pdf I've uploaded to Google/Docs.  Do remember to check the measurement of your printed version for a wasteline measurement of 5.5" if you are making a vest for a bottle with a 9.5" circumference.  If not, you may need to verify your printer is printing "as is" size, or make a copy using an enlarge or reduced scaling, as appropriate.  But that 5.5" measure is important to check.


I hope you have fun in this Fall EQ Blog hop.  There are oodles of tips, tutorials and inspiration that will be shared at the stops along the way, plus a few giveaways too!   Here is the line up:

Monday, Oct lst
SewCalGal
Beaquilter

Tuesday, Oct 2nd
Marjorie's Quilting Bee 
Curious Orange Cat  

Wed., Oct 3rd
Love Bug Studios 


Thursday, Oct 4th
Kissed Quilts:  
Bits & Pieces:  

Friday, Oct 5th
I Quilt Scarlett & Grey:  

EQ Blog:

http://electricquilt.com/
http://doyoueq.com/
http://doyoueq.com/blog/