Linen Eureka Tops

I love the Eureka vest and have made it out of wool, raw silk and lightweight linen. But I wanted to make one that had a "skirt" or underlay so that I could use two coordinating pieces of linen—a plaid and a stripe—that I'd gotten from Cy Rudnick's years ago. (Sorry but the store closed years ago.)

The first step was to decide what the underlay should look like. Remembering a discussion with Linda about the Hibiscus Shirt, the underlay for that shirt is what I used as a starting point for the vest. I drew a pattern from the Hibiscus underlay and made the necessary alterations to the Eureka fronts and backs to match the asymmetrical shape of my underlay.

Next I used some inexpensive fabric that I'd recently purchased to make a test. The result was the yellow vest above.

Since that worked out well, I cut out the fabric from the teal plaid and striped linen fabric, sewed it up and ended up with a really cute vest.

But I didn't stop there because I wanted to make a vest that didn't have the asymmetrical look to it. I wanted one with just a "skirt" under it, which was very easy to do, as well as a vest that was a bit longer than the Eureka vest.

1) I used the back underlay pattern from the Eureka-Hibiscus vest, but squared it up so it wouldn't be asymmetrical.

2) I shortened the original length of the Eureka vest a few inches.

3) After sewing the Eureka portion of the vest, I just topstitched the skirt onto the Eureka vest.

Voilà—two new versions of the Eureka vest.

Guest Blog Post by Ann Unger

Thanks Ann!