I've got a bit of a story to serve as the inspiration for this DIY.
A couple of years ago I found an old denim jacket at a thrift store and took it home to modify. I cut the sleeves off so I could wear it as a vest, but for some reason I didn't really end up wearing it a lot. Nevertheless, I kept it in my closet for a while with the intention of jazzing it up.
The other day while surfing the net I came across this tutorial and thought it was perfect so I decided to pull out the old denim and give it a try! I also had an old Keane band shirt which I cut up to use for the back panelling (side note: check out Keane if you haven't, they're one of my favourite bands!).
Anyway, here's my take on the panelled vest :)

- A denim vest or a jacket with sleeves cut off.
- A patterned fabric for the back shoulder panel.
- An old shirt or other fabric for the back of the vest.
- Scissors.
- Tracing paper and a pencil / pen.
- A sewing machine. First lay out your vest and identify the panel that you want to cover with fabric. The back shoulder panel is a good one! Lay some tracing paper over the shoulder panel and trace the shape of it with a pen. Cut out the shape you traced to make sure it fits your panel. Lay your traced paper shape over your patterned fabric and cut it out. Make sure you cut the fabric slightly bigger than the paper shape to leave room to fold the edges under.

Note: If you're going for a more 'edgy' look, you might leave the edges un-folded for a bit more of a frayed effect. Lay your newly cut patterned piece out over the back of your vest. Where the shape is too big, fold the edges underneath and pin them down in place.
Pin all the way around the edges to make sure everything stays in place for sewing! Sew down your fabric panel to the vest! Next, take the piece of shirt that you've cut (I chose to cut my shirt in a rectangle shape, but you can pick any shape really!) and lay it over the back of your vest.

Pin it in place and sew it down, the way you did for the other panel. I didn't fold the edges underneath for this part, because I wanted that 'sewn on patch' look and this fabric doesn't fray so easily.

If you have any excess shirt fabric (like I did at the bottom) just trim it away after sewing :)

And you're done!

Here's the front, with the shoulder fabric peeking out: And here's the back... Now is this a super cool way to wear a band shirt, or what? I hope you enjoyed this post! If you're interested in more denim jacket / vest projects there are some fantastic ideas you can look at here at Studs and Pearls :) I will probably be giving them a shot in the future!

Blessings and thanks for reading! :)
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