DIY PROJECT: Leather jacket

Leather jacket

In my previous post Taking matters into my own hands I was starting to make a leather jacket - and I have succeeded!!

It took me a total of 2 weeks (not full time of course, a total of 10 hours I think..)
and a staggering €40!
Not to bad, no?!

My inspiration for the jacket would have to be a 'simple' cut.
You can't simply make a bikerjacket, that's waaaay to complicated and I could even buy a jacket for the time and money that would cost..

So I decided to make some kind of 'waterfall neck' / A-symetric jacket, that is suitable for the winter and maybe some early Dutch spring temperatures..


Inspired by the following jackets I found online

Gestuz leather jacket, €336,95 via Nelly.com

Gestuz Scarf jacket, €299,50 via Nelly.com

Lovely Avelon...
why is it so hard to find pink zippers?

The process of making the jacket

The pattern

Luckily I already had a sweater/cardigan similar to the jacket I wanted to have. So I traced the pattern and added some things to make it more like an outdoor jacket pattern.

The fabric

I really wanted it to be made out of leather but buying leather can be really expensive, it would turn out to be around €180 just for the fabric. So I decided to try and find a jacket online that I could alter the way I wanted it to fit and look. Well... that turned out to be a FAIL! 

The secondhand jacket I bought online was only €10 (that's TOO cheap, I should have known). It turned out to be fake leather and smelled like sigar smoke :(

So I started over and decided to buy long skirts online and break them apart to get two pieces of leather. That turned out great! I only paid a total of €40 for a suede skirt (80cm long, softest suede ever!) and a leather skirt (75cm long). It worked out really great and a LOT cheaper than buying leather from a shop or wholesale. 

The suede skirt
(I kept the lining to use it for the jacket sleeves)

The leather skirt

Materials

I also used my moms very very old industrial sewing machine. Really cool and really scary at the same time. The machine made a real loud noise and because of sewing through 4 layers there was a possibility that the special leather needle could brake. And it did, a couple of times, and scared me to death haha! 

I used a so called 'rotary cutter' to cut the leather. You can also use normal or industrial scissors, but they have to be really sharp to cut through the tough leather.

Sewing rotary cutter
(always use a rubber mat underneath, if you don't want to ruïne your table!)

The result

But in the end I survived, love my jacket and the fact that I made it myself (with a lot of help from my mom). I couldn't have done this without my mom, she helped me BIG TIME! 

I ended up having just enough leather and therefore chose to make the front out of the suede and the back and sleeves out of leather. I especially like the fact that the jacket's not totally perfect, the seams are different on the back and on the sleeves which give it a special feel (I think).

Better pictures will follow soon..

Happy DIY'ing,

S