Blazers, Part II

This week's been a doozy, my friends. The polar vortex that froze up the United States a couple weeks ago was followed by a bit of a heat wave. Temps reached as high as 70F/21C here in Texas last weekend. It was lovely. I took my Sunday Sew-Day project outside to do some hand-sewing on the patio. Laika basked in the sunshine.

But it's all fun and games until someone eats a light bulb. Or part of one. You see, months ago, before we got the puppy, my husband accidentally broke one of the flood lights on our back patio. He cleaned up the glass, and we went on with our lives. Unfortunately, he missed a piece. A piece the puppy was kind enough to find for us last Sunday. Luckily for her, I was sitting right there when she picked it up and ate it. Luckily for her, I have friends in the dog-fixing business. I called my friend the vet tech for advice, and she suggested we meet her at the clinic, which is actually closed on Sundays, for an x-ray. Upon confirming that yes, indeed, our dog was stupid enough to swallow something that sliced the roof of her mouth up when she bit into it, this friend called her friend and coworker, who just happens to be a former classmate of ours as well as a full-fledged veterinarian. This second friend was good enough to drive into the city from her lovely suburban home far away on her night off just to perform emergency surgery on our dim-witted dog. She removed three shards of glass (and a whole assortment of other objects traditionally considered inedible) from Laika's stomach before they could reach her narrower intestines and start doing some real damage. Plus, while she was under the knife we had them also spay and microchip her, a little ahead of our intended schedule, but hey, two birds with one stone, right? At least, the drugs appear to be effective.

She stayed at the clinic for two days. Monday evening, we went and visited her immediately after work. Tuesday evening, we went and picked her up immediately after work. And I've been working from home the past two days, interspersing periods of actual work with playing nursemaid. She's on the mend, making gradual improvements daily. She clearly wants to be the playful puppy again, but lingering pain and that blasted collar really put a damper on things. I'm sure she'll be back to normal soon, having hopefully learned a valuable lesson about digestible and indigestible materials.

Needless to say, all this leaves little time for sewing, but I was able to finally finished Sunday's project. So let's get down to it, shall we? I've had this blazer hanging in my closet for a year or so now. It was initially thrifted though I don't recall the price; certainly less than $5 tops. I've only ever worn it a couple times though. It's fine, just a little too plain, with sleeves a little too short, and now it's a little too large as well.

It's a lovely chocolate-y burgundy color with tiny fuschia pin stripes, but the button in the center didn't seem to match at all. It had an almost greenish brown tinge to it.

Perhaps the previous owner had lost the original and replaced it with this one at some point. She had also tried to lengthened the sleeves a bit, but only gained maybe an inch in doing so. That may have been enough for her, but not my ridiculous monkey arms.

I decided not to fight it. If I can't make them longer, I'll make them shorter. I chopped off 3 inches from each sleeve.

I folded the outer fabric out of the way and pressed the lining fabric upward.

Then I shoved the lining up inside the sleeve and pressed the edge of the outer fabric toward the inside.

I pinned my two pressed edges to each other, keeping the lining just a bit shorter than the outer fabric.

Then I hand-stitched around each sleeve, being careful to only go through one layer of the outer fabric, so my stitches wouldn't be visible from the outside.

I decided to embellish the jacket's pockets using the chopped-off sleeve bits. I pressed out the existing hems.

Then I folded each tube in on itself and pressed again.

I ran a line of basting around the tube's raw edges, through both layers.

I gathered the basting stitch, creating a little rosette, and tied it off securely. Next I attached each rosette to each of my jacket pockets. A blinged-out button from my stash completes each embellishment.

In order to make the blazer a bit more fitted, I removed the old button and sewed a new one on a couple inches in from the edge. I added a hook-n-eye clasp to the inside edge to keep it from pulling weirdly when I put it on.

I covered the stitches from the outer half of the hook-n-eye with a fourth button, for a double-breasted look.

And with that, my blazer update was complete! I find that a plain blazer often comes across as more... shall we say "mature"... than my taste. Having some fun little details, like the leather snaps on last week's Thrift Score, or the rosettes and double-breasted buttons on this piece, give it a bit younger feel.