Presenting the Fulton Sweater Blazer from Alina Design Co.! This was one of those rare love-at-first-sight patterns that I knew I had to make as soon as it started popping up in my feed.

I loved the idea of a relaxed but still semi-professional long-line blazer in a stretchy fabric. I mean, what’s not to love!

I happened upon this mystery fabric at Fabricland ages ago. It was only described as a “stable knit” and is probably some kind of ponte. I washed and dried it and it performed beautifully. I actually dried it and left it in the laundry bag for about 6 hours and when I took it out, it was basically wrinkle free. I wouldn’t have bothered to iron it if I wasn’t going to be photographing it.

I was a little hesitant about the collar insertion, but it was actually really easy with the video tutorial on Alina’s website. I do, however, have two tips to make your collar as symmetrical and painless to install as possible. Chose to mark the corners with thread instead of chalk. I had to wash my blazer before wearing it which is always a bummer, and chalk only shows on one side. Having markings that go through the fabric is really helpful. I also recommend basting the corners together by hand. Even with a ton of pins, I found things shifted and my collars weren’t quite even.

The rest of the construction was really straight-forward. If you’ve seen a basic cardigan before, you can make this jacket. The only other area where I strayed from the pattern directions was on stitching down the collar facing. She recommends “stitching in the ditch” through the shoulder seam to secure it. I’m not a huge fan of stitching in the ditch (anyone else find this technique fussy and impossible to get right?), so I opted to hand tack instead.

Had I been in less of a time-crunch, I might have decided to go with fancier finishes on the inside, such as some Hong Kong binding. I did entertain the idea, but didn’t want to ruin the sleek minimalism of the garment with a busy, printed bias tape.

Even though I haven’t worn the jacket as I type this, I’m really glad to have it done. This was definitely was one of those projects that was burning a whole in my brain, waiting for me to just make the dang thing! I feel a little bit like I have more mind space now to focus on other upcoming garments.