Blazerama!
This is the Seamwork Delavan blazer. Seamwork describes the Delavan as "one of the simplest, straightforward blazer patterns available. It has all the components of a tailored jacket, including a lapel collar, center back vent, and blind hem finish."
The Delavan has long darts on the back and front bodices for shaping, but it's pretty casual and loose-fitting in the body. I was going for a comfy, casual blazer, so I am cool with that.
I felt pretty good when I tried on the blazer, although now that I am looking at the photos I'm not sure what's going on with the fit. It's a bit strange in some spots. Like pulling in some spots and too much fabric in others?
My fabric is Kaufman chambray with a hint of stretch. I figured a chambray blazer would be really versatile in my wardrobe since it's pretty neutral! Here I paired it with my white Cashmerette Springfield tank and my Style Arc Georgie jeans.
To keep the insides of this unlined jacket looking slick, I bound the inner seams with vintage bias tape from my mom's stash (the bias tape is older than I am!). In some cases I pressed the seams open and bound the seam allowances separately; in others I bound the seam allowances together.
This was my first time using this technique. It was pretty easy, but fairly time consuming! It went smoothly with the exception of the top of the vent/bottom of the center back seam where you clip into the seam allowance so the vent lies flat. I still have some raw edges there and have no idea how I was supposed to enclose them:
And speaking of the vent... I had major issues with the instructions for finishing it. The vent is closed, rather than open, and I had trouble finding help or tutorials online dealing with it when I ran into trouble with the instructions. The instructions have you sew the center back seam and vent first, then hem the blazer. However, I discovered, the vent won't lay flat unless you switch up the order of construction such that you first finish hem seam, then hem it up, and then sew the center back seam and vent. Whew. A lot of puzzling, unpicking and polling the interwebs to come up with this solution! Thank you to Sarah for being so quick with a solution to my problem via Instagram!
I hemmed the body and sleeves with the blind hem stitch on my machine. I still haven't quite mastered this stitch- some are not quite as invisible as I would like; they're a bit long. It may have been that the bound hems were a bit thick for my blind hem foot to jump over?
In addition to stitching the collar facing down at the shoulder seams, I popped some additional stitching at the center back neck. I am considering adding a few hidden hand tacks here and there down the center front of the blazer to prevent the facing and main body from separating. You can see how the bodice tries to roll out from under the facing in some of these shots.
In the end, I'm pretty happy with this blazer and will definitely wear it a lot. I'm not sure I'm elated, though, yet, with the fit. I'll have to work on that!