Just take a minute and let that sink in. If you are thinking I must be crazy, you are probably right. It started when my mom thrifted me a leather jacket that I had intended to use for bag accents, something I have wanted to try for quite a while. The jacket was hanging around and waiting for me to get it cut up and usable, and as I kept walking by and looking at it and thinking about how nice the leather was and how much I would like to wear it. Keep in mind I had never sewn with leather at all at this point. Yep, I'm nuts! For reference, here is the jacket, a men's XL.
My main problem was a pattern but as I was perusing my pin boards (I knew I collected all that stuff for a reason!) I came across the perfect pattern! The cookie zipper blouson by waffle patterns. I was a bit concerned about whether I could get all the pieced I needed out of the jacket but in the end, I bought it to see since it was on my wish list anyway and let's be honest, I was going to buy it eventually. I figured out that I could {just barely} get all that I needed out of it, with only a few odd seams and such to work around. For the knit I used an old shirt I haven't worn in ages, and I decided to use their tutorial to add a lining which is made from an old sheet. I didn't have enough leather for the facing inside but I did have some old brown corduroy pants of the husbands that were perfect. What I am saying is, I made it work.
The sleeves are a bit shorter than they were supposed to be since the original jacket had snaps on the end of the sleeves that I needed to cut off, and the back yoke has a weird seam, but overall, it worked out better than I could have imagined. The leather was light and smooth and pretty easy to sew with. I used a leather needle and my walking foot and a bunch of clover clips since no pins allowed, and things went really well. I had one place on the shoulder where the seam started to rip and I'm not sure why, but I glued it down and reinforced it and it will hopefully be fine. I will say that gathering the leather was a bit of a beast and I had a heck of a time figuring out that lining tutorial, but it all came together. The only thing my machine didn't like was the top stitching at the end, around the zipper especially since there are so many layers. I definitely have some areas of skipped stitches, but I decided I am okay with it and no one will notice but me. Also, I was quite happy that I didn't have to make pockets since there were some there already, and while they may not be ideally placed, they are super functional and I was glad to be able to skip that step. I reused the zipper too even though it was a bit shorter than I needed.
I finished it days ago now and I am still amazed that I made a leather jacket. I would guess that eventually I will make this pattern again, maybe out of sweatshirt material and perhaps without a lining. Or maybe out of knit....oh the possibilities! For now though, I am just going to be proud of this :) With that said, next week I'll show of some of the much more boring everyday clothes.
