The Heather Blazer - By Brittani from @UntitledThoughts

Bonjour mes amis! I am so excited to be here on the Friday Pattern
Company blog to tell you all about my new Heather Blazer because... I am
simply obsessed! But before I dive in, I wanted to say hello and
introduce myself to those who might not know me. My name is Brittani and
I am an avid gardener (with dreams of becoming a mini-farmer!) as well
as a vintage-inspired pattern designer! You can find me at
@UntitledThoughts on Instagram where I chronical my sewing, baking,
gardening, DIY-ing journey!

Now on to the blazer :)

When I first purchased this Cloud 9 Organic Shimmer Cotton from
Topstitch Studio a few years ago, I 100% knew I wanted to create a
blazer out of it. The only problem was (aside from accidentally washing
something blue with my first batch of the fabric!) that I couldn't seem
to find any patterns that really meshed with the idea I had in my head.
I tried creating a few toiles from vintage patterns, but none of them
really felt right. Something about the shape and proportion of each
pattern was a bit …off on me, and my attempts at adjusting the sizing –
or even attempting to draft my own blazer – came up fruitless. So, I put
my pink sparkle blazer dreams to the side for a while.
Cut to a few months ago. Chelsea reached out to me asking me if I would
be interested in collaborating with her in some way for her new pattern.
It was going to be a blazer and she thought it might pair well with the
Chandler Trousers from my own collection. She sent me a few pics of the
two items together and I fell in LOVE. Oh my goodness – was this the
blazer I had been long dreaming of?
I, of course, jumped at the opportunity to test her new pattern. Well, I
guess “jumped” isn't the correct word. Don't get me wrong – I REALLY
wanted to sew this blazer up for myself, but I had literally just
finished working on hand sewing my husband's suit jacket for
our wedding, and I was nervous that this would be a massive undertaking.
Hadn't I just sworn off making tailored pieces?

I am so glad that I pushed my reservations and doubts aside, though,
because this pattern was truly a pleasure to sew up! I did make a toile
to check the fit as I generally have to adjust shoulders and sleeves. To
my pleasant surprise, the fit of the toile was pretty much perfect! I
wound up not having to make any alterations to my entire pattern (though
I did play around with adding darts/ shortening the overall length /
adjusting the pocket sizes. None of those ideas really worked, but it
was fun to play around!).
Even with sewing a toile, I still managed to finish this entire project,
from start to finish, in a few hours over the course of 3 – 4 days! Much
better than the months I spent on my husband's suit jacket. Like I said,
I wound up not making any alterations to the pattern itself, but I did
get to employ a few tricks I learned from the previous jacket I had
created including: catch stitching the inner collars together, catch
stitching the sleeve hem, using sew-in interfacing, and tacking the hem
lining on the inner seams.

Summary
Overall, I believe that this jacket is going to be my new favorite
wardrobe staple and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to
dip their toes into the water of tailored garments. This is such an
easily digestible project to work on while learning new tricks and terms
that are more specific to tailored pieces without feeling overwhelmed!
Plus, in the end, you will have an amazing new piece that can be styled
In an infinite number of ways. I only managed to capture 3 ways that I
styled my Heather, but even with these three outfits, I see endless
possibilities for mixing, matching, and accessorizing.
Now my question is... what are you waiting for? I know you are just as
excited as I was to make your very own blazer! And with Chelsea's
pattern, you 100% can do it!

Find Brittani on Instagram here.