My Needle Sharp subscription box – Wildwood Vest

Last fall, I was contacted by Needle Sharp, which offers monthly subscription boxes and standalone sewing kits, to see if I’d be interested in collaborating with them. They offered to send me a box in exchange for an honest blog post about my experience. This intrigued me because I have never bought a sewing box with everything included — fabric, pattern, and notions.

Needle Sharp’s website says they “bundle modern patterns, drool-worthy fabrics, and all the notions you’ll need.” The kits include patterns from a variety of indie pattern companies, such as Chalk & Notch, Sew House Seven, Closet Core, I Am Patterns, Merchant & Mills and The Assembly Line.

I like choosing my own fabric, which is why I have not tried a sewing subscription box before. But I was curious and decided to select one of Needle Sharp’s January kits, which featured quilted garments — the Wildwood Vest from Helen’s Closet, the Tamarack Jacket from Grainline Studio, and the Hovea jacket from Megan Niesen. This indie company offers three different levels of subscriptions for varying levels of sewing and offers more luxe fabrics for the “Sew Indulgent” box.

I have never quilted a garment before. I’ve used prequilted fabric, like the Hovea jacket I made in 2022 from Nani Iro double gauze that was quilted for Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics. So this seemed like a good one to try out two new things: quilting and a subscription box. Thank you Needle Sharp for asking me to check out your offerings.

Warning: This is a long post — more photos of the completed vest are below — and if you make it to the end, details on the other garments I’m wearing in the photos.

Needle Sharp subscription box options

Needle Sharp gives you three fabric options to choose from to make a garment. For the Wildwood Vest, my choices were a walnut shetland flannel, a water-repellant, rose pre-quilted polyester, or 10 fat quarters in various prints in a colorway of midnight blues, blacks, and teals. I picked the flannel because I wanted to do some basic quilting and I wanted to keep it simple. The fat quarters were tempting but I thought it would take me too long to finish if I had to piece something together.

These were the fabric options.

The box was supposed to arrive in January but there was bad weather around that time and the post office lost a shipment of boxes. I sent a dm to Needle Sharp on Jan. 21 asking about the status of the shipment — and that’s how I found out about the delay. I was told that they were working with the post office to find them but they would reship if they didn’t hear anything. A new box was shipped and I got it on Jan. 26.

The Needle Sharp package

The sewing kit wasn’t an actual box. The package arrived inside a large opaque plastic mailer with all the materials inside a large cellophane bag. Here’s what the package looked like when I took it out of the outer bag. Inside were the sewing instructions, the printed sewing pattern, fabric, batting, lining fabric for the vest, notions, and a few other fun goodies.

Everything was very nicely packaged. Here’s a look at the notions. The thread was inside the polka-dot package. The yards of bias tape were bundled and kept together with a rubber band around the middle. There was also a little blank notebook, the floral print under the bias tape, and a mini Reese’s peanut butter cup, which I promptly ate. lol

Here’s are the spools of thread in the package. There was also a spool of thread that was a lighter color, more of a taupe if I wanted to have my top stitching stand out. I decided to go with thread that matched the color of the flannel fabric. These were the sew-on snaps that came with the package. I decided not to use them because I didn’t want them to stand out when the vest was open. I had some black sew-on snaps in my stash so I used those instead.

There was also a postcard with fabric care info and a fun label paperclipped to the info card. I sewed that label to the center back.

The nice thing about a sewing kit is that everything is included, including a printed pattern. Helen’s Closet’s patterns are PDFs so I was happy to avoid taping together a PDF or pay to get a large-format printout. You can get the Wildwood Jacket and Vest pattern here on Helen’s Closet’s site.

To subscribe or not?

I am not the speediest of sewists plus I have so many patterns and fabrics in my queue already so I don’t think I would subscribe to a monthly subscription box. I could see the sewing kits piling up and then feeling bad that I didn’t sew them up. But subscribing to Needle Sharp can be a great way to build your wardrobe.

The patterns and fabrics are actually things I would sew. It’s definitely worth exploring — maybe by trying out one kit to see if you’d like to subscribe. I will be checking out upcoming kits. If you want to simplify your options or you’ve lost your sewjo, a sewing kit could be a fun way to get it back.

Sewing details

I picked size 14 (bust 40″/101.5 cm, hip 42″/106.5 cm) so I would have enough ease to accommodate a bulky sweater or wide sleeves.  This vest/jacket can be made in three different lengths — high hip (cropped), low hip, and mid-thigh. I made the low hip version.

I didn’t make any adjustments in cutting out the pattern pieces. I usually make a square shoulder adjustment but with this vest, you can just adjust the overlap of the pattern pieces at the shoulder.

Helen’s Closet instructions are easy to follow and have a friendly tone. reassuring you that even if you don’t have any quilting experience, you can make this vest.

I cut out the fabric and the cotton batting for each piece with an inch margin around each pattern piece. Then I sandwiched them together — flannel fabric, batting, and lining — and pinned them together for quilting. I decided to sew diagonal lines  2 inches (about 5 cm) apart — with the diagonals at opposite angles on the front. I wanted the lines to meet in the middle.

So I marked the fabric with chalk but I could see that the marks were fading so I used some bright yellow silk thread to trace those lines. This also helped to ensure that all the layers would stay together.

For extra insurance, I also put some safety pins around the edges before I quilted. The instructions warn about the pieces shifting as you sew.  The instructions also tell you to start sewing in the middle and to sew in the same direction. This meant that the first diagonal line I sewed was in the middle of the pattern piece. I have to admit that that gave me pause — start sewing in the middle of what? lol

Here’s one quilted front before I put it in the washer and dryer.

Confession: I was lazy and did not want to use the walking foot, which I find tedious. I just reduced the pressure on my presser foot and sewed the lines. However, by not using a walking foot, my stitch length was not consistent. Oops. Some of the stitches were shorter than others. Oh, well. If I quilt again, I will use a walking foot. Lesson learned.

When I placed the pattern pieces over the washed-and-dried quilted pieces and discovered that the quilted pieces shrunk more at the top and bottom than at the sides. Hmmmm. Maybe I didn’t leave as much margin at the top when I was cutting them out.

I wanted the front pieces to line up in the center but I forgot that I would have had to offset the lines so they would line up when the vest is snapped closed.

You can see that the diagonal lines match up when it’s unsnapped.

Here’s what it looks like when it’s snapped — you can see that the quilted lines do not line up in the center. Oh well. I still like the vest, which I have worn several times because the weather has been cool. The Bay Area used to be quite warm in March and April, but we have been having more rain and the temperature drops whenever it rains.

The pockets

I love the pockets on this vest. They are so sturdy. You can easily put your phone, keys, and even a slim wallet in the pockets. I added a label to this pocket that says “You Can’t Buy This” from Kylie and the Machine. I stitched the diagonals on the pockets in the opposite direction of the front pieces because I didn’t want to figure out where exactly to sew the lines so they would match up.

Bias tape

There is a LOT of bias tape. It goes all around each raw edge, including the pockets. The Hovea jacket is also finished with bias tape so that was basic sewing. But I did take more care with pressing the bias tape after sewing the first line of stitching. I wanted to make sure the bias tape would lie flat around the curves. Steam is your friend. Then I basted the bias tape in place before sewing top stitching it in place.

The tricky part for me was overlapping the bias tape around the pocket so you had one continuous piece of bias tape. When I did it the first time, I sewed the diagonal in the wrong direction. Oops. So I had to do it again. Luckily there was plenty of bias tape to accommodate my error.

More views of the vest

Here are a few more views of the vest, including a couple of seated shots. I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to take photos seated so that people who use wheelchairs or simply spend a lot of time seated, know what the garment looks like. I really need to get a portable stool that I can take with me when I take photos. I sat on a fire hydrant that was in front of this mural — as you’ll see below.

If the armhole is gaping, you just sew some 1/4″ (~6 mm) elastic to reduce the gaping. It seemed to me that I had more gaping in the back so that’s what I put the elastic. However, I did not look at the vest with it pinned shut. If I had done that, I would have noticed that it was gaping a little in the front, which you can see in this photo.

For the back, I just stitched diagonal lines in one direction. I thought about adding another row of stitches going in the opposite direction, creating a diamond pattern, but I really wanted to finish it. I wasn’t making any attempt to match the side seams either. I didn’t leave enough fabric around the pattern pieces to do that anyway.

You can really see the quilting in this photo. Basting my stitch lines took some time but it was worth it. See how straight my lines are? (It was a little windy that day so my skirt isn’t hanging straight down.)

I’m sitting on a fire hydrant so I’m not exactly sitting as I would in a chair. But you can sort of get an idea of what the vest would look like seated.

 

And last but not least, a view of the sleeve of my top. You can wear wide sleeves with this vest! Congratulations and thank you for making it to the end! You made it to the end! I’m also wearing the Cuff Top, a pattern by The Assembly Line. I’ve actually made it several times but I haven’t blogged about this pattern yet. I lengthened the sleeves and cropped the length of the body. The colorful cotton print from Britex Fabrics. The skirt pattern is from the book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design and the skirt is made from heavyweight cotton denim knit.

If you’ve made this vest or any other quilted garments, I’d love to hear about what fabrics you used and how you quilted them (horizontal lines? free quilting? diamonds?). Did you make a pieced version using a variety of fabrics?

I definitely want to make this pattern again. Maybe my next one will be the cropped version using fabric scraps. Stay tuned — maybe that will be a project for next fall.