Happy Sunday y’all!  Today I want to share something that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time: Greek Dancer Vests. My kids and I have been dancing with our Greek Dance Troupe for several years now and I had noticed that our girls’ costumes needed some updating. I’m so proud to work with such a dedicated group of kids and really felt that the costumes didn’t reflect their level of professionalism.

A few years ago I had some nice blue ones made, that are currently featured in the pictures on the website to make a full costume set but after having a very hot and sweaty 3 day festival with costumes that were still damp when we went to put them on Sunday I decided it was best to have more than one set. So I started looking for patterns and I finally found a pattern that was almost what I needed and figured that I could modify it.

I started with a Folkwear 108 Turkish Dancer Sewing Pattern. The vest had a nice shape but wasn’t exactly what I needed. Starting with the pattern and some Sewable Swedish Tracing Paper I began to create the new patterns I would need. After much trial and error I ended up with the basic shape I was looking for.  I used plastic snack bags to keep my pattern pieces separated.

I chose a slightly stretchy black denim for the vests and a black lining. The fabric needs to be able to move with us as we dance and also needs to be very durable.  Before binding the outer and inner vests pieces together I decorated the vests with some embroidery.  I used my Brother Embroidery Machine that is no longer available but the Brother PE525 Embroidery Machine is it’s updated version. I found a nice pattern on the Brother website and used gold metallic embroidery thread to give it some extra bling.  I finished it off with some embroidered ribbon and either gold clasps or gold frog closures.