Thayer Sew-Along: Inspiration

All images in this post pulled from our Thayer Inspiration Pinterest Board

Welcome to the first day of the Thayer Sew-Along! During the next few weeks we'll walk you through every aspect of making your own Thayer Jacket, starting today with our inspiration post. You can find every sew-along post for the Thayer Jacket here on our Thayer Sew-Along page. Now let's talk inspiration!

Sometimes it can be hard, when starting a new project, to decide what direction you want to go with it style wise. Because of that we've gathered some images from ready-to-wear to get your creative wheels turning. 

While the Thayer is workwear inspired, it was originally designed as a take on the classic, shearling lined jean jacket. The standard here is a blue denim with white lining, much like we used for one of our photographic samples. You can have fun with this combination by mixing up the denim, go darker or lighter, or using a colored or printed shearling for the lining. How cute is that leopard print lining! This combination of fabrics results in a jacket that will be in style for years to come and pairs well with all sorts of outfits.

Corduroy is another excellent option for the Thayer Jacket and lucky for us it's very "in" right now, resulting in a wide array of color and wale choices available for us home sewers. Personally I'm very into all of the 8 wale corduroy available right now. It's got a modern feel while still feeling a bit vintage-y. Also a bit about corduroy: the wales refer to the fuzzy ridges on the fabric. So 8-wale corduroy means there are 8 ridges per inch, while 21-wale means there are 21 wales per inch. 

There are many other great options for your Thayer Jackets aside from denim or corduroy. Twill is an excellent option as is lighter weight canvas. To me those reference Carhartt jackets, which personally I'm into. I like that the Thayer could be a more stylish version of this jacket. We've also seen a lot of jackets made with shearling inside and out, and I think this could be a really interesting take on the Thayer. We're hoping to try it out here at the office at some point. Another thing I'd personally love to try is a wool shell – sort of a mix between a jacket and an oversized button up. Printed fabrics are another great option and most home dec weight fabrics would work well for this jacket.

Last of all I wanted to share these awesome jackets I found on the Carleen site – they used quilts to line them! I think this could be a really amazing variation of the Thayer and I love how outside the box it is.

So that's it for Thayer Inspiration! There's so much out there it was hard to just pull a few images for this post. For more inspiration check out our Thayer Inspiration Pinterest Board and keep your eyes peeled while looking at RTW clothes!

If you have any questions, let us know in the comments below, we'll see you back here Wednesday for our next post in the series!