Blazer! Prequel

So. I made a blazer!

It is not perfect (and this is where you will come in), but I did make it, and it is not completely embarrassing.

I used Style Arc’s Sara jacket pattern, with some modifications: widened the hips by about an inch, and broadened the shoulder by half an inch on each side.

I used fusible cotton interfacing, with the seam allowance snipped away first.

I also watched this Craftsy class–the whole way through, twice–in order to get a solid grasp of what I was about to do. And just in case you’re wondering, which you probably aren’t, I’d been tackling cutting out the jacket, lining and interfacing pieces over about 6 weeks.

One thing I learned from Ms. Howard was that fusible interfacing is not suited (ha!) to suits made from finer materials, and that I could expect bubbling or separation if I used a wool. This is a poly-wool, and there is definitely some separating, which is irritating. So next time, with the wool, I’m going to go for the full pad-stitching-with-hair-canvas approach.

My Blazer! has welt pockets.

It has an ease pleat in the back.

It has jump hems.

It has vents on the sleeves.

The shoulder seams sit on my shoulders. The waist and hips fit fine–and the waist would have fit better if I hadn’t mistakenly placed the buttonholes too far from the placket edge. Oops.

The sleeves, however, are too long. Next time I’d have to take 1.5″ out of the sleeve length. How do I have such short arms?

And the bust is too snug.

Now this is where my Dear Readers come in:

HOW do you do a full-bust adjustment on THIS?

Bottom slit is for the welt pocket. You don’t want to change that at all. Top slit is the dart. This is where I need to add space. But where do I cut it too, and how do I remove the excess from elsewhere? Do I just turn the upper part of this into a princess seam so I can adjust that fit?

I also did not add shoulder pads. I hate shoulder pads, and normally they make me look like a linebacker. But I think it did affect the fit in the shoulders a bit. It all looks a bit more gathered than it would have with some stuffing in there. That’s ok; I can live with that. Or if it comes down to it, I can open it up and put in a shoulder pad. No biggie.

The pattern also suggests that you sew the entire jacket together rather like a large purse–lining to body all the way around, leave a small gap, and then turn it inside out and close up the hole. This I did not do. I followed along with the lining installation on Modern Jacket Techniques, which worked just fine. This means I ignored the part of lining sleeve construction where it tells you to leave a gap in the seam.

There’s only one thing I must complain about on this pattern, and that’s the notches on the sleeve lining pieces. They  make no sense.

There’s a notch on the lining undersleeve pieces that says “to side seam.” Dandy. But which side seam? There are two of them on each side. In another spot, there is a double notch that corresponds to nothing, as there is no double-notch on the armscye opening at all. I did my best to install the sleeve lining in a way that made sense, but it was still puckered in spots. It doesn’t affect the way the jacket fits or feels, though.

Everything else on the pattern worked out really well. All of the other notches lined up; the cut-out darts shaped things nicely; the welt pocket pieces all matched up well.

Overall, though, the bust fitting issues and the way the pattern is constructed leave me thinking that I may be better off starting over with a new pattern for jacket #2. The Sara jacket is really innovative and it was a fun puzzle to put together, and it works so well, but it’s not as adjustment-friendly as a princess seam. And sadly, I need adjustment-friendly.