Self Drafted: Collarless Blazer

When I think back to when I made my first blazer I remember being insanely overwhelmed by the idea of making another one. Then the instructor/teacher/callherwhaterveryouwant told us that the feeling will not go away for a while. It will stay with us for the next ten blazers we make without any help or instructions, and then it will start to go away. And after we have made at least 20 we'll start feeling like at home. I guess now I'm reaching the big number 10. Well not reaching, but this is actually the 10th blazer I have made. And I can say that she was right. The feeling of deep fear and insecurity is starting to go away. Sure, while drafting the pattern sometimes feels wrong because every body is different and the shape of the pattern is different and when I get to cutting the thing out of the fabric, my hand does shake a bit but that's all things I need to push through. Because I know what I am doing. I only need to get more confidence and trust myself more.

 So here's the milestone blazer. A collarless cream jacket. It's a very basic piece with no pockets, vents or any other sort of additions. Mrs.Kd wanted a very simple piece to wear to work and she saw a picture of The Blue Skies Jacket and she knew she wanted something like that. But with a V-neck. Mrs.Ks wants, Mrs Kd gets.

The fabric is a linen/polyester blend and it was raveling like it was it's job! Despite the fact that the blazer was going to be fully lined, I had to additionally serge all raw edges or I wouldn't have had anything left from the pieces after the fittings. So this blazer got to feel the love from all of my machines. For the lining I used a viscose lining fabric.

I also used interfacing for the front pieces, facings and tops+bottoms of the back and sleeves. And to secure the facing from peeking from the insides I topstitched the front and neckline in place.

The fashion fabric was a delight to work with(apart from the raveling part), It didn't wrinkle much and behaved really well under the sewing machine. Plus it molded really well with the help of some steam.

Hanger loop. I hate these things but the must be in blazers and coats for random reasons.

 Overall I really liked making this blazer. With every blazer I learn more and get a bit more confidence. And for some reason this blazer reminded me a lot of the blazer I made for my mom two years ago(even though they are nothing alike). Since then my mom has lost around 15kg and is swimming in it. I can sense me having to take it in for her in the future.

So what have you been up to my little unicorns?

Self Drafted Linen Mens Blazer.

 This post is long overdue but better late than never, right? Riiiiiiiiiight???

Remember when I blogged about these Linen Dresspants and I mentioned that I would be making a matching blazer so that Mr.Suit would have an awesome suit? Well here's the blazer! Modeled for you by Mandy as his husband(fiance at the time) wasn't here yet. So please mind all the horrible fit issues as it's not really meant for Mandy. Oh yeah, Mandy got married to Randy, my new male dress form. We have a weird arrangement going on between me, Mr.Man, Mandy, Randy and Mini-Me. But it's all cool.

I drafted the pattern myself and it's a pretty classic style and shape. The only thing that did make me pull my hair out was the fact that Mr.Suit didn't want to have the classical horizontal pockets that mens blazers usually have and that's a bit of a problem. You see, for men the drafting process is a bit different and the pocket height is predetermined and drafted before fittings. It doubles as half of the breast dart and helps to shape the blazer. So it's cut right in the beginning. But now I didn't have the pocket. See my problem? After spending hours watching the pattern, and spending many hours at night thinking about what the heck I was going to do, I just decided to wing it, change the shape of the seam line a bit and hope for the best. And it worked! YAY!

Guess who forgot to take pictures of the whole back? THIS GIRL. Amateur.

The blazer has vertical pockets hidden in the side front seam, a single vent in the back, tiny vents in the bottom of the sleeves and one pocket on the inside of lining on both sides. To attach facing to the lining I used a method where the raw edge of the facing is finished with a bias tape and the whole thing is topstitched to the lining.

Look at that tiny sleeve vent! JUSTLOOKATIT! That pesky little thing is so annoying to make, but it sure does look nice.

Pocket on the inside of the lining sewn through the front facing and lining. This might just be my favorite kind of pockets. No joke.

I can already feel the confusion. Where are the inside shots? Where are the explanations on what really goes on in menswear blazers? I know, I know. I promised that I would try but here's the thing. Menswear blazers and coats have a lot of pesky little details and steps and weird things going on. Which take time. And photographing  them takes also a lot of time. And time isn't something I have a lot lying around when I'm on a deadline. Which is always when I'm working on customer projects. So I had an idea that started to brew when I was making this blazer and that keeps popping into my head when I'm working on a coat I'm making(if you are following me on instagram you have already seen a few sneak peaks).

I was thinking about making a series of posts on things and steps I do in mens blazers/coats. I mean everything from shaping, pressing and support to pockets. So if you guys would be interested in something like that, I could make that happen and without the pressure of getting a whole blazer done withing 50 hours, it seems an achievable goal. So let me know if you are interested in the series.

Self Drafted Blue skies jacket

Oh I am on a roll. Three posts in three days? I must be going through some sort of a mental breakdown. Or maybe it's the urge to  get all the posts with the old dress form out of my way and to forget the lousy fit of garments on a dress form that's a million sizes smaller than the garment. Whatever it is, it's making me chatty.

After a long-long time of making jackets from synthetic blend fabrics I had started to forget the unbeatable feeling of handling real woolen jacket fabric.  So you can imagine my excitement when starting to work on this beauty. It's inspired a bit by the Chanel jacket. It has no collar and the corners of the front are rounded off. I inserted pockets into the front princess lines and a classical slit in the back. Unfortunately there's no lining on this one(sigh) but we can't have it all. Wool is such a pleasure to work with, the ease how the seam allowances press apart is just orgasmic and it feels like play doh when pressing and shaping it.

I used heat fusible interfacing to maintain the shape in the front and upper areas of the back and side pieces. For the pocket fabric I used a piece of cotton I had lying around in my stash.

Pattern: Self drafted
Fabric: 100% wool
Time spent: 20 hours

The slit in the back

To finish the neckline, I used pieces of fabric I cut out in the same shape as the main piece(not sure what the term for this is in English. Feel free to correct/help me). I also serged all seam allowances to avoid raveling of the fabric in the future(and believe me, this ish ravels a lot) I also topstitched the whole edge of the neckline and front closure to make the fabric stay as I wanted it to stay.

I really like this fabric. It's not just plain old light blue, it has some spots of dark blue and red in it so it has that something special every garment needs. And I quite like the little pop of shine the buttons have. Though I was quite offstandish about them at first. But it worked out.

God, I love natural fabrics. Except linen.

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Fooniks
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