Blair Tester Round-up
Pattern Masters
We’ve only been online for a few months and in that time, we’ve been blown over with how inclusive and welcoming the sewing community have been. People we’ve only just met online offering friendly tips or advise. With this in mind, it wasn’t hard to find a willing team of sewists to help test our first jacket pattern.
We’ve always been honest that we’re industry girls. We’re used to instructing factories or sample machinists how to put our styles together: people with a wealth of factory or industry knowledge who only really needed the basics from us. We had a small team of trusted pattern testers our first 2 patterns Cissy and Jenny but we wanted some extra care with Blair.
She has a few more tricky construction steps and we wanted to make her as user friendly as possible. One of our aims is that no matter how complicated our pattern a beginner can pick it up and understand how it goes together. We knew we wanted to get a wider range of testers with a varied skillset and size range involved if we were going to make that a reality
Eirini’s all over print….
We approached some amazing sewers and asked if they’d be interested in testing for us: from Instagram, friends of friends, our contact at Cultural Enterprise Scotland’s wife, and one of our first ever customers emailed us when she spotted a typo in our previous instructions so we signed her up too.
What’s so incredible about our testers is that they gave us their time, skills and evaluable extra set of eyes to feedback on the fit of the pattern, the sizing, styling, sewing level and the instructions. Any feedback they gave was all so constructive. From spotting typos to asking for more simplified or clearer sketches or instructions. This was really emphasised in our notch collar instructions, so we added extra sketches and simplified the steps. It’s the extra depth of time and energy that they all put in that his given us such a polished pattern. We’re so proud of this pattern and think it’s the best we’ve produced yet.
I love the different strengths each of our sewists brought to the finished product and how different each of their Blair garments were at the end.
Special thanks to Margaret, Carolyn, Sarah, Charlotte, Irene, Laura, Rosey and Samantha. We couldn’t have got here without you.
Carolyn pictured in her amazing dyed wool Blair with homemade buttons.
Carolyn added bound seams, handmade clay buttons and a hanging loop at the back neck. You can find out more about Carolyns process for making Blair on her YouTube v-log
“You have an exceptional pattern and set of instructions that made it a really enjoyable make”
Charlotte @cwheelkaye made her Blair in a gorgeous linen look fabric for a more relaxed slouchy feel <3
Samantha @theruralsewist blazer length Blair, looks immaculate with jeans and a white T.
Rosey styled her longline Blair with a chunky knit and opaque tights, teaching us all how to layer perfectly for any Scottish season.
Irene’s heavy cloth gave her short Blair a more structured finish
Rocking her fun cropped Blair
Our Blair jacket has a boxy, oversized silhouette with a dropped shoulder and french dart for shaping and balance. The double-breasted fastening and slim notched collar and lapel, give a modern clean look. Both the duster length, (View A) and blazer length, (View B) have a double yoke and shirt pleat on the back. View A also has a generous side seam pocket.
Blair works well made-up in crisp linens, drills or lightweight wool as a relaxed blazer. Or lightweight jacquard or drapey fabrics as a shirt dress.
Product/Style Details:
Sizes: UK 6 - 24 (US 2 - 20)
Slimline collar and lapels
Double-breasted front
French darts
Deep side pockets
Back yoke with shirt pleat
2 length variations
This is a digital pattern download. You will receive the following PDF files via an email download link, on purchase:
A0 copy shop PDF pattern file (2 pages)
Print at home PDF pattern file, A4 and Letter. (41 pages)
PDF Instruction booklet