Grainline Studio Morris Blazer - the muslin is back

Edited August 25: I'm so mercurial! Right after I posted this in May, I decided to sideline it. I don't even remember what bothered me about it - I think maybe the fabric made my eyes wiggle. 

Anyway...I'm putting it back in the mix, because I've just cut out another Morris, for real this time, and I know it's nice to see what went into a muslin. 

Coco

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The latest from Jen at Grainline Studio - a casual little blazer for wovens and stable knits. I had to give it a try. Jen's designs are so fresh, and her patterns are such a pleasure.

I wasn't sure that I really liked the front of the jacket, so a muslin was in order. I managed to cut all the main pieces from scraps of mid-weight (8 - 10 oz) cotton/lycra knit that I used for a maxi skirt. And I used mid-weight cotton/spandex jersey knit for my facings. The two fabrics work very well together and give this jacket a nice beefy feel without being heavy.

The main fabric I used is not the best choice, because it has 4-way stretch. A 2-way stretch would be so much easier to manage on these small pattern pieces.

There are now a lot of reviews of the blazer, and I'm so grateful for them. A number of sewists noted a tendency for the front fabric to sag in the area above the banded hem. The favored remedy seems to be topstitching along the front facing edge to stabilize the fabric. Hmmm. My knit fabric would only make it worse - so I decided to tweak the front in hopes of circumventing that sagging.

Basically I redrafted the dipped point in the hem, moving it back and up.

And I'm happy with the result.  In the end, I also topstitched along the facing line (more below), but primarily to keep the facing in place.

Some pics on Emile:

Other sewing notes:

• I cut a straight size 12.
• When I basted in the sleeves, the seams were a little low off my shoulder. Easily fixed with a small redraft of the upper half of  the armscye. I might not need this adjustment with a woven fabric, so I didn't transfer this change to my tissue.
• No sleeve facing - I overlocked the sleeve edges, turned them up 1", and simply topstitched them to finish.
• The rest of the topstitching -  I didn't topstitch the outside edge of the collar and front, because I wanted to keep the fold of the lapel very soft. And as noted, I topstitched along the lines of the front facing.

I didn't even have to lengthen this jacket! Love the length.

This was an interesting project, but I'm not sure I'll sew it again. There are so many jacket patterns that I like more than this one.

Hope everyone has a nice and safe weekend - Coco