Gorgeous Inside – My Morris Blazer

Hello and Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate!

A while ago I shared a picture of the insides of the Grainline Studio Morris Blazer I was making and it went CRAZY on Instagram. It was easily the most likes and comments I had ever had on a photo! I mean, you guys really like pictures of pretty guts! Note to self: post more pictures of the insides of garments!

Anyway, here is what it looks like on the outside. It is made from some of this Atelier Brunette French Terry, kindly supplied to me by Minerva Crafts. It’s a bit different to any French Terry I’ve ever used before as the loop back on the wrong side is sort of ‘brushed’ so it is super soft and snuggly. It worked really well for this pattern, which actually lists French Terry as one of the recommended fabrics on the packet.

For a change, this is one make that I actually really needed! I have no casual but nice jackets in my wardrobe for evenings out – on the rare occasion I go out for a night on the town I can be seen sporting either a nice wooly cardigan or a big winter coat! Not really the ideal look when I’ve spent hours making a beautiful dress for a nice occasion and then I chuck a cardigan over it or cover it with a big coat. Not. A. Good. Look.

As part of my aim to be more sustainable, I am trying to sew things more slowly and take my time – hopefully producing fewer, better quality garments. Therefore, I knew that I wanted the jacket I made to last me a really long time. It’s such gorgeous fabric and it goes well with so many garments in my wardrobe that I wanted to give it some extra special treatment. That’s when I decided to order 4m satin bias binding and go to town on making the insides as beautiful as the outside.

I chose to Hong Kong bind the centre back seam and bind the hem and facings. This is the first time I chose to work with satin bias binding but I honestly didn’t find it any more difficult to work with than cotton bias. I think the satin really elevates the make into something special and whilst it looks casual from the outside I know it’s fancy on the inside! I cheated a bit on the binding as I actually bound all of the pattern pieces before I assembled any of the jacket. This meant that I didn’t have to try and bind around any difficult bends or into any corners. I just assembled the jacket with the two back pieces, the hem facing and the lapel facing already bound.

One final touch I added to the inside of my jacket was to create this little ‘Atelier Brunette’ label. I actually made this out of the selvedge of the fabric – down one edge of the fabric the logo is printed on in the same gold as the spots. I cut around one of the printed logos and topstitched it down, making this fancy label! I’m now going round harvesting selvedges from all my fabrics and making labels from them all…

I’ve written some more about this over on the Minerva Crafts Blogger Network if you want to know more. I’d like to finish by saying I really hope that if you celebrate Yule or Christmas, you have a lovely week and a pleasant holiday and I hope you get some stitchy gifts from Father Christmas!