This Took Forever

Do you have sewing projects like that? This was like a bad penny that just kept coming back, lurking darkly, peaking out of an otherwise cheerful stack of fabric that might be next in the queue.

I started in January, I think. Then as I began to panic over my Station-of-the-Cross project, I had to push it aside.

Right before I had to rip everything out

Generally I don't have garment projects that remain UFO's for long. This one, though! Try as I might, there was always more and more and more to fix, correct, rip out, recut, rethink, and rip again.

There were two major (and many minor) problems with this project. First, the fabric is scratchy. Why did I buy it? I have no idea but it must have been cheap. That's all that I can figure. It is a great weight for outer wear. I'll give it that.

My chosen pattern was the San Diego jacket from the Sewing Workshop. It has their signature cut-on collar that I love. Because of the above-mentioned scratchy wool element, I redrafted this include a separate piece for the collar and front facing. Then I cut it out in the precious leather. Thus began the second major problem with this project.

Because this is outer wear, I wanted it to have  weight and substance.  I quilted cotton flannel to all of the wool pieces, as well as the leather pieces.

It looked OK at the beginning but somewhere along the way I became aware of some ugly stretching in the leather that created pulls and puckers. Yikes! You don't just unsew and resew leather. Those little tiny holes are of course permanent.

I guess it was good that I had to put it away at this point. I was discouraged and sad to have ruined the leather. I will never, ever buy leather to sew again - not necessarily because it's hard to sew but because I cannot help thinking about the source.

So now I've returned to the mess project. The resulting coat is resurrected and quite wearable. In maybe 6-8 months. That's OK. Now I can put it away as a complete garment. Whew.

The collar and front band are made from black silk dupion, a go-to fabric for me. It is not quilted like the leather. The lining is a medium weight silk, similar in weight to charmeuse, but easier to sew. It came in scarf panels.

I am fairly satisfied with the resulting jacket. I used some never-before-used buttonhole features on my sewing machine for heavy fabrics.

I got to use some well-aged heavy buttons, just right for this jacket.

Those little ruined pieces of leather are still in stash. Some way, some how, I'll use them. And now I'm ready for some COLOR!

The dogwood blossoms are fading fast.

San Diego Jacket

Let's see. Where was I?

Oh, yes. I was panicing about my Stations of the Cross piece.

And I was learning how to design a foundation pieced pattern for the set of complex shapes I created for this piece. I learned how to foundation piece to a degree, but I'm still a rank novice when it comes to designing this thing with this technique.

Yeah. What's this?

Late one night I decided that most of this piece is better managed with needle-turn applique and strip piecing, something where I have better skills. I was tired and making mistakes. My sewing area had devolved to this:

I ended up with one salvageable piece that may/may not go into the final piece.

Time to switch gears, at least for a while. The next day, I took time to tidy up and decided to finish another WIP,  a San Diego jacket from the Sewing Workshop.

I had cut the face fabric and the lining but was deciding if I wanted to add an interlining. I had also decided to use a precious piece of black leather for the facing to keep that scratchy wool away from my neck.

The lining is a medium weight silk from Gail K. It seems to be more manageable than silk charmeuse for sewing purposes and still a nice weight for a lining on this jacket.

The face fabric is a fairly hefty wool, a bit scratchy. A piece of super soft leather was lanquishing in stash and so I decided it might make a good facing for the jacket. This will protect my neck from the wool. The jacket pattern includes a cut-on facing so I had to measure and measure again before cutting the leather facing. I was very careful.

I used cotton flannel to interline the face fabric, using vertical quilting to attach the interlining. I got a bit confused and made some mistakes with the leather facing and its quilting. Dang.

After creating some new seams, I'm OK with the result. Too bad I did not trust my original cutting and think more carefully before sewing the leather facings. As you probably know, leather is as unforgiving a fabric as ever there was. I won't use real leather again - my conscience won't let me.

Sigh.

I've finished inserting sleeves and sewing side seams. The fit looks great for a fairly heavy jacket. Now I'm excited to finish. Next I have to fine tune the lining pieces to make it easier to attach to the leather facings.

A Little Leather

Mary Ray introduced me to sewing leather a year or so ago. And I wanted to make something leather after that, but I kept allowing other projects to intervene. In the meantime I acquired two thrifted leather skirts, one in a cinnamon suede and another in a mustard suede. I took them apart but then could not decide what to do.

Then I started folding it and playing with it. And it naturally became a medium-sized clutch after I resewed the waist darts (why did I unsew those darts???):

The wrist strap and loop came from the kick pleat facing.  For lining, I had left over quilted fabric from an art quilt that had to be deconstructed. 

Unfortunately, after I finished lining it, I found that it was impossible to top-stitch around the edges, as I had hoped. My trusty Bernina made a terrible noise trying to penetrate that bulk on the edge. After trying several different types of needles, I decided to leave it alone.

Some parts of this were so simple.  The leather is thin and easy to cut. Because I had so little invested, I even did some resewing which is normally a bad idea with leather. I was just careful to follow previous lines of stitching and hope for the best.

Another simple part was inserting the magnetic clasp. A little kitchen knife plus some pliers made it quick and sturdy. I did fuse some interfacing over the back sides before completing the lining.

The suede was not as easy to sew as I had hoped. I used a Teflon foot which helped a lot, but I found that the suede wanted to drag on the feed-dogs. This was mostly easy to avoid by keeping the leather part of any seam under the foot, and the fabric part on the feed-dogs. I wonder if smooth leather would create the same problem?

It feels very yummy. 

I'm not sure what I'll do with the mustard suede skirt. Maybe a tote? I cannot wear mustard close to my face but I love it, so it will become something.

So what are your experiences with sewing leather?