One local thrift shop has 99 cent clothing Sundays, which is almost as good as free. I figured it wouldn't hurt if I bought something to experiment on, so I got this oversized blazer. It was made of nice material and quality construction, but of course the fit was horribly dated. I'm not sure what brand Paul Stanley is. I couldn't find anything online except for this old 80's rocker guy from KISS. Maybe he got into fashion back in the day...?
I wanted something long enough to especially wear with leggings, and was inspired by a lot of "boyfriend blazer" looks such as these:
There was a lot of trial and error. A LOT of seam ripping and learning as I went. First while wearing the blazer, I chalked on the sides, shoulders, and arms where I wanted to take them in. Measured how much I needed to "pinch" in each area, which was about 3 cm all around.
I took a deep breath, seamripped the inner lining where necessary, and removed the shoulder pads. I also turned the sleeves inside out and sewed a new seam (on the outer sleeve and the lining) 3cm from the old one, and took 1.5 cm from each seam at the sides (there were two per side).
After a very frustrating time with trying to fit the shrunken sleeve into the old arm hole (it kept on puckering or poufing, which isn't what I was going for with a menswear blazer), I realized that I would have to shrink the hole at the shoulder seam too, and that it was easier just to simply take the whole sleeve out and realign it, instead of trying to minimize sewing.
(The whole sleeve removed, with lining still attached).
Because the pockets were originally located right at the edges where I took the blazer in, I had to remove the pockets, cut the hole further inward and slide the pockets over. The blue "right side" that I'm touching was sewn to the bottom flap interfacing side. The top portion attached to the lining "wrong" side of the pocket would be flipped to the outside of the blazer, and then be sewn to the top flap of the blazer. That doesn't quite make sense, but you need to plan to keep the pocket open at any rate and you can reason it out that way.
Finally I trimmed and pieced back the lining using a slip stitch (tutorial here).
And viola! It's a little lopsided (and not very neat on the inside) but when you wear it you can't tell too much. I'd say a good first attempt!
