At long last, I've actually made some progress on my jacket! I've been meticulously testing out sewing tools and techniques on
scraps of leather over the past two weeks, whenever I could tolerate sitting at my sewing machine.
When I'd had my fill of scraps, it was time to move on to sewing my jacket. I started with the leather facings. Not only would this help me finish the lining, I reasoned, but if disaster struck, it would be on pieces that are on the inside of the jacket.
One of the things that I haven't seen discussed on line or in sewing books in any detail is what to do when sewing two types of fabric together - in this case the silk lining of my jacket to it's leather facings.
A tip I picked up from
Sewing With Leather & Suede by Sandy Scrivano is that when sewing leather to another fabric, you should sew with the leather on the feed dogs and the other fabric on the foot for smooth feeding. However, I had also seen warnings that the feed dogs could mark the leather, but in my tests this hadn't been a problem. So, I sewed leather side down, using a size 80/12 leather needle. My leather is not
particularly thick and the recommendation I've seen is to use the thinnest needle that will do the job (smaller needle = smaller holes).
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| Scraps: Silk and leather sewn together |
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My first test - sewing leather to silk - worked out just fine. So, then I tried sewing with piping sandwiched in between the leather and silk. I basted the piping to the silk first, using a fine microtex needle. Then, changing back to the leather needle, I sewed the three layers together.
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| More scraps! This time with piping. |
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And then it was on to the actual jacket lining:
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| The back lining piece with collar facing |
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| Front facing with lining attached |
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| Closer look at the facing with piping and lining |
I think it all looks good so far. And I'm finding leather pretty easy to sew on. It's a really stable fabric. Still, I'm taking my time and going slow. With summer coming, there is no rush for a leather jacket, and mindful sewing will prevent mistakes (fingers crossed).
More to come! I've already started sewing seams and more.
