1.10.2022

Sewing for My Man: The Neverending Story.

 
Rob Harriell Fabric Shopping!

Help me Rhonda, it's time to make Rob a blazer. It's been time for years now. But in my defense, this man is a VERY PICKY DRESSER. This is strange, considering the 22-year-old dusty mauve oversized t-shirt that I just am not allowed to toss, regardless of the many holes and various bleach splatters.

This t-shirt is the ugliest thing in our closet. NO YOU CAN'T SEE IT. I refuse to take a picture of it and validate its continued existence.

But here's some evidence of pattern choice and toile:

Sewing a toile for Vogue Patterns menswear

I'm using Vogue 2616, nabbed at the 2019 American Sewing Guild Maryland Annual luncheon, where I was the guest speaker on the topic "Remix, Redesign & Recreate." I ran around a packed Hilton convention room with a mic and a rack of garments, and sweet baby Yoda, was it ever a wonderful day. What a marvelous, multiethnic, creative mix of humans! It's something I've been meaning to holler about here, but shortly afterward, life events (and then world events) prevented that. A trip down memory lane is on the way.

A good chunk of that speech was all about thinking outside of the pattern envelope. Technically I shouldn't be allowed to talk about pattern envelopes--considering the horrific way I treat them, I'm surprised they haven't collectively sought out a restraining order against me. But I do love to beat a different path when it comes to the prescribed journey! When the ASG sewists heard that I had yet to make good on my promise to Rob, they steered me towards this pattern in the swap portion of the luncheon.

The heavyweight flecked purple yardage (modeled by ole blue eyes above and found at Osgood Textile) was my intended suitor for this blazer, and it's very much not the right choice! It's way too heavy for a suit jacket. Though I'm itching to make it happen and go against the envelope recommendation since it's a Rob-approved, technicolor choice. These sort of choices don't happen errrrry day! 

I'll probably go with a much more conventional yardage picked out by the man, the myth, the legend: Sam of Chic Fabrics. I took our YouTube audience out shopping with me to source the right fabric and found Sam on duty! We had a very, very good masked romp through the aisles. You can see the picks in this video!

Sewing a tailored blazer

I've got a few options to help me along the way: the Basic Tailoring edition of the Art Of Sewing; any number of Craftsy classes, and the mac daddy of them all: Kenneth King's Smart Tailoring course, graciously gifted to me by the Threads Team when the subject of The Missing Blazer came up in Episode 36 of Sewing With Threads. Thankya Threads team!!! Now I just have to find the time to watch the King at work, fit the Rob at hand, and SEW THE DAMN THING.

Have you ever sewn a tailored blazer? How did it go? Wins and horror stories alike are welcome...

14 comments:

  1. Shhhhhhh! My man is dropping hints heavier than an elephant about me learning to tailor him a jacket.

    I already knit him the gaudiest of socks, and I've got shirts in the pipeline for him. Maybe if we don't let him see this post he'll forget! ;-)

    Can't wait to see your version. It's going to be gorgeous!

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    1. Evie godsakes switch to screensaver mode before he sees it 🤣SAVE YOURSELF

      Surely handknit socks go a looooong way. There's a heel to conquer and everything!

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  2. Your make will be fine tho you’d enjoy it more if you had time to ease into it. It’s almost time for a sale where royal family gets fabrics. Here’s my note to self a few years s ago: Sale at Joel & Sons annual 12 fabrics deeply discounted were in 2018 for 3 days (72 hours) 12 coordinating fine fabrics, all of which I could wear, deeply discounted to £8-£29.xx, starting the day after MLK day In January. There’s not a lot of yards in each, so be prepared to decide quickly.

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    1. PS They were highest quality menswear wool. PPS I need to change my name to Going Home. Someone told me it looks anti- which was never my intent.

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    2. oh wow, that site looks amazing. If the shipping costs make sense I'm all over that! Good point on taking it slow. It's taken me years at this point, why rush it 🤣
      And I can see where folks might get confused by the moniker, though I'm a fan of asking about confusing wordplay before jumping to conclusions!

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  3. I got to see you present and you were wonderful! Thanks so much and all the best with the blazer project.

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    1. oh thank you! It was really such a wonderful day! I'm going to reach out and see if any pictures still exist.

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  4. That speckled stuff would look delightful as a blazer! If it's too heavy for a regular suit, could it maybe be something more outdoorsy instead, like a Norfolk jacket?

    I've done tailored 18th century coats, but the only modern blazers I've sewn were 4 matching brown polyester ones for a theatrical production. I was given a very worn old jacket to copy a pattern from, and the actors all lived in a different province and all I had to work with was some photos of them and slightly incomplete measurement sheets, so that was... fun. They ended up fitting ok though.

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    1. YIKES. The magic people expect in theater! The fact that they all fit is a TRIUMPH.

      Maybe I should start with exactly that--a simple outdoor jacket out of the speckled stuff could ease me into tailoring....

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    2. Well, mostly ok, if I recall correctly the sleeves were a bit short on some of them, but it was a comedic mime thing where they were all playing a weird shabby old man so it was fine!

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  5. More than a decade ago, when I was first trying to impress my now husband, I sewed him a lined wool sport coat. I recall covering some errors with a stenciled patch of flaming skull.... I believe the welted pockets (and my poorly chosen polyester lining) were the most challenging bits. The rest of it actually went together pretty well. It's been so long, I have tossed the blasted pattern (my man is a wool shirt fellow, not a sport coat fellow) but it really was not hard. And I am someone who has difficulty with fly front pants.

    Could you turn the too heavy fabric into a Dickensian cape thing? With matching spats? I look forward to seeing what you create.

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  6. Ooo I started with a toile for the man once but he is an exceptionally tricky fit,I haven't event managed a good shirt fit on him except the Cornell shirt! I saved my pennies for a couple of years and sent him to a fancy tailor for a bespoke suit instead (shh don't tell anyone!)

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  7. Yep. That's how I found out why men's blazers fit and last so much longer than women's blazers.

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i thankya truly for taking the time to comment, i love a good conversation-- and hope you know my thanks are always implied, if not always written!