The Saturday Blazer – Outerwear for PR&P

Yikes! I really fell behind on blogging this week. I had a tutorial lined up for this week, as well as projects from BEFORE Christmas that I haven’t shared and I certainly didn’t get to blogging about my Project Run & Play Sew-along entries before I posted them to flickr. I just BARELY made the deadline this time.

So the theme was Outerwear. I figured I’d probably make a coat of some kind, but I don’t have much experience making coats/jackets. I’ve made a hooded cape and a little coat, and though they turned out ok, I was just making it up as I went along and knew that I wasn’t doing it the “right” way. So I took this opportunity to learn more about jacket/coat construction (did you know how many pieces a basic jacket is made of!?? A LOT). I thought a little fitted blazer would be adorable on Yuki and I found this Toddler Blazer pattern by Melly Sews.

This is a super cute pattern for toddlers and young kids (the pattern is for 18m-4T). It was very easy to follow along and I highly recommend it! It’s $6 and you can buy through that link I posted above. I’m REALLY glad I decided to work from a pattern first because I had NO clue what facing was or how to sew it in and now I understand!

The smallest size is 18 months and even though Yuki is 17 months, she is small and is closer to a 12 month size. So I had to take the pattern down in size. I also wanted the blazer to have a fitted, slightly feminine look to it. I didn’t want it to look boxy on her, so I added a slight curve to the sides of the jacket to bring it in around her “waist.” It’s hard to see in in the picture, but I think it makes a difference. Of course, I made it TOO fitted. So now it’s snug when I button it over her big baby belly. Oops.

I used a gray bottomwear fabric from Jo-Anns because I love gray and it goes well with everything. The lining fabric was something that I had in my stash (also from Jo-Anns). I had bought it because I loved it, but had no idea what I was going to use it for. I love the bright splashes of color that it gives to the gray blazer!

I call it Yuki’s Saturday Blazer because that’s probably when she’ll wear it. Monday through Friday, while H and I are at work, Yuki goes to a nanny share a few days a week and is watched by H’s mom the rest of the week. We just dress her in comfortable “whatever” clothes because all she is going to do is eat and play and nap and roll around and get messy (which is generally ALL toddlers do). We never dress her up during the week. But Saturdays are for going out and doing special activities so I might dress her up in this. Sundays too, so maybe I should have called it the Weekend Blazer 🙂

So this wasn’t even meant to be my entry for the PR&P Sew-along, since I made it as practice. But I do like how it came out so I figure I might as well share it anyways. After I made the blazer, I applied the same construction steps but drafted a completely new pattern for a coat. I’ll share that one as soon as I can 🙂

Thank you Melissa from Melly Sews for the awesome pattern! I’ve learned a lot from you!

And here’s a little blooper from the photo shoot. I feel like I usually have one or two jewels that are just hilarious or cute – so I’ll start saving them for the end of each post: