Meet the Thayer Jacket
Today we’ll be talking all about the Thayer Jacket! If you’ve been following Grainline for the last year, you might remember last year around this time when I drafted and sewed a jean jacket in the 3 days leading up to Camp Workroom Social. I loved that jacket (still do) and wore it constantly, so over the past year it was re-drafted using our blocks, tested, and turned into the Thayer Jacket!
The Thayer Jacket was inspired by traditional lined denim jackets, but with a few style upgrades which we'll discuss below.
One of the first things you'll notice is the slight A-line shape. Most traditional workwear or jean jackets are very straight through the bodice. By changing the overall silhouette we ended up with a jacket that pairs equally well with a casual look but also has the ability to be worn with dresses and skirts without pinching in their fullness.
Princess seams along the front panels allow for shaping and easy adjustment to the bust if needed. We haven't topstitched them in our samples to keep the attention on the pockets.
Speaking of pockets, this jacket has a full set of useful pockets! The large shaped patch pockets will easily fit your hands, phone, a travel mug, an actual mug, many snacks...just to name a few things that have gone into mine personally. The angled shape at the top of the pockets allows for a shape that keeps things from falling out of your pockets, but still allows your hands easy access.
The inseam yoke pockets are another fun detail on this jacket. You may have noticed by now that here at Grainline we love a good inseam pocket and we also love inventing fun ways to put them in! This jacket is no exception. The buttonhole for this pocket is made into the princess seam and the construction is one of my favorite parts of this entire jacket to sew. You'll also find it to be a useful size for a phone, pens, whatever else you might need access to. It's also a great place to stick an enamel pin!
The Thayer has a two piece sleeve which gives you more points for adjustment, looks great, and also makes the construction process we used possible.
The entire jacket is fully lined – the body with the fuzzy fabric of your choice, and the sleeves with a quilted lining fabric. Using two different lining fabrics for these purposes allows you to easily slip your arms in and out of the jacket.
The collar on the Thayer is done with the contrasting body lining as a nod to traditional lined denim jackets, but you can easily make it out of your main fabric, or do a completely new fabric as a cool contrast feature.
All of the seam lines (save the front princess seam) are topstitched using the faux flat felled method. If you're feeling very ambitious, you're more than welcome to flat fell them though!
The deep hems are another really fun construction point on this jacket. We have bagged the jacket using a slightly different method than our usual. Due to the fact that this jacket does not have facings we had to work out a different bagged lining technique. If you're a person who's into gaining new skills this might interest you.
For our Thayer jackets we finished them off with jeans snaps but you can easily do regular buttons, the sky is really the limit on that part.
Now lets briefly talk about fabrication. We'll be doing a full fabric inspiration post shortly, but for now here are some basics. For our denim sample we used Cone Mills non-stretch denim, and lined it with Michael Miller Organic Cotton Sherpa. For the pink version we used a wide 8-wale 100% cotton corduroy and lined it with Birch Fabrics Organic Cotton Sherpa. Both jacket's sleeves are lined with pre-quilted lining fabric. On the pattern we recommend the following:
Main Fabrics: Medium to heavy weight woven fabrics such as denim, twill, corduroy, or canvas.
Body Lining: Warm medium to heavy weight fabrics such as cotton shearling or flannel.
Sleeve Lining: Woven quilted lining fabrics
The sky is pretty much the limit with choosing fabrics for this jacket, and you can further customize how it turns out by your choice of topstitching thread (or skipping it all together!) and buttons.
That's it for our introduction to the Thayer Jacket. We can't wait to see what you make up so make sure to use the hashtags #grainlinethayer and #grainlinestudio so we can see your versions. Let us know below if you have any questions and what you’re planning to make!
