Virginia legging experiment in stretch suede

Last year sometime, I discovered Stouls, who are in France and make washable suede clothing. The quality is exquisite and the prices are sphincter-tightening, especially when a relatively weak currency like the kiwidollar is involved.

In the States there is better access so while I was there, I took the opportunity to investigate.  I determined that although they are great quality, they are made with the assumption that you are about 185 cm tall.  And the fit is nothing spectacular.

Well, I can make leggings.

Thus began another sewing odyssey.  A lot of time was spent thinking, for instance, what would I do with the waistband?  Would it require special management?  Could I get away without using elastic? How to sew it together?  I assumed that overlocking would be impossible. 

I bought some stretch suede from the Fabric Store, managing to score it on a day there was huge sale on.  I bought 3 skins. My leather legging cost: 200 dollars.  Stouls leather leggings: 1500 dollars.  I reckon I'm winning here.  

I made a practice pair from some black fleece that had similar stretch characteristics.  High waist, size XS.  They were amazing!  In fact they were so great that a friend begged me for them and I gave them to her.  They confirmed the fit, and I just used a piece of the fleece for the waistband.  I cut about 3" off it to make it tight enough. With the high waist that was perfect.  They were a little tight on my calves, and I reckoned 3" too long.

Another investigation: I washed a piece of my beautiful blue stretch suede.  It seemed to do ok, confirming that they could be washed in an emergency, but I wasn't sure if the stretch was just a bit lazy after that.  So better not to wash them. 

To prep the pattern, I cut off 3" of the bottom of the legs, and I used that same length of waistband that worked on the fleece pants.  I traced all my pattern pieces and then started chopping the piece up until it fit on my skins.  I ended up with a lower leg piece, a horizontal seam, and two thigh pieces with a vertical seam.  I cut the waistband in 2 pieces.

This suede is pretty thin, so after only minimal hesitation I went for it and used the overlocker.  Absolute success. I overlocked the crotch seam, inseam and the waistband, but just straight stitched the pieces together on the sides, and also straight stitched the lower calves onto the upper legs.  Some topstitching was involved to help strengthen those seams, and I topstitched the back crotch to add stability.  I found that the topstitching decreases the tension on the seam, which obviously is a good thing on stretch leather trousers as who wants the butt seam to fall apart?

Added pockets.  I measured them to be the size I wanted, where I wanted.

When I tried these on I discovered an interesting technical feature of stretch suede.  What stretch it has widthwise ends up shortening the fabric lengthwise.  So the fixes that I borrowed due to the fit of fleece leggings were not helpful - the leggings are much shorter and the crotch height is much lower.  The waistband, because the stretch is horizontal, was too loose. I ended up fixing this by opening up the back seam and adding in some elastic. I hadn't wanted elastic but now I'm really glad for it as it makes the pants feel more secure.  They feel a bit tighter than the practice pair but overall I'm happy with the fit. 

So the best thing about doing it yourself is that you can add pockets!  I have pockets!  They are so stretchy that I should have reinforced the pocket tops by folding them over, otherwise they are great, and of course the right size for my phone (left pocket) and my car keys (right pocket).

Verdict: some learning and a huge amount of thinking for an awesome result.  I'm so proud of my suede pants and I think I'll get a lot of wear out of them before the weather gets too warm.  I finally feel like a fashion success when I'm strolling around town after surfing!

Stretch suede Colette Mabel Miniskirt & the #sewfrosting challenge

This was a project that I thought up last year while I was binge-making these miniskirts.  I had one  stretch suede skin, in this dark wine red, and I tried really hard to get all the skirt pieces to fit onto it.  I cut each piece flat, I jigsawed like mad, but I couldn't magic my pieces to fit onto one skin.  I was stumped, because the colour and texture of the skin meant nothing quite matched.

The idea languished, until I discovered a blue stretch suede skin at The Fabric Store.  I had to brainstorm how they would match up, and came up with the idea of triangles.  I finally got working on it in October but immediately lost hope yet again when I saw that my triangles were too wide - one of them fit on each skin, but I needed two per skin.

It took the #sewfrosting challenge for me to realise something sort of obvious: if you can cut a piece in half once, you can cut it in half again.  I cut each triangle of the back skirt in half, making two triangles of each colour, and remembering to add my seam allowances.  I sewed these together right away so I wouldn't mix up which piece was supposed to line up where.  And I top stitched everything in its own colour.

Two triangles of the back skirt sewn together

Entire skirt!

This project was really hard only because of my terrible sewing machine.  It was frustrating to accept skipped stitches as the status quo and to let go of the idea of perfect topstitching, but I just don't have the equipment to do better (and honestly it's not like this miniskirt is going to be worn out too fast...) I had to switch to a new extra sharp needle after every 15 inches of sewing or it would skip too much.

I also forgot a lesson that I had learnt early during my miniskirt marathon, which is that the entire waistband has to be overlocked.  I stitched it on the machine and then understitched the waistband lining and then had to undo all that.  At least it meant I got to overlock at the end and enjoy one machine that worked well!

Once I got started actually sewing this was a relatively fast project, though I took a lot of breaks due to sewing machine frustration.  

I added the pocket by eyeing where I wanted it and marking the spot with chalk.  I also measured the size of my pocket by what I'd need to fit a wallet and phone.  (truth!) Luckily I had enough fabric for that - I chose to do the blue waistband so I could do a red pocket.

in my imagination this was going to come down to a perfect point.  Hm, pretty close though!

My miniskirt is great!  It is so stretchy!  Interestingly, I get horizontal lines above the hips which remind me of trying to fit the very classic and well loved Vogue 1247 skirt (here's mine) - just like I had to shorten the Persephone pants across the pelvis, maybe I have to shorten everything on "high waisted patterns" (ie ending at the belly button) between the waist and hips.  I've never measured my rise - I think I've just gravitated towards pants that fit without making any adjustments because of being a lower rise - except for the Persephone pants which have been worth the effort. 

By Hand London Victoria blazer - lambskin suede

Get ready for a long and detailed post...I have never spent as much time and effort on a project as this one and I tried to document it as I went along.

First of all thank Kim for the inspiration!  I found these lambskins on sale at Michael Levine's in LA.  The "on sale" means that they had about twelve sticky tags on them, and I couldn't use the tagged bits.  In my head, three skins was definitely equal to the back, sides...and one sleeve of the Victoria blazer so I already sensed a challenge.

In Auckland I got some advice about needles and heard a refrain that I'd heard before..."but you'll need a walking foot."  Crap what's that?  So the skins sat for a few more weeks while I thought about how I actually didn't want a short sleeved Victoria blazer.  And finally one night I had the strength of will to tackle this terrifying prospect, and start looking at the pattern pieces.

I traced the back piece flat so that I didn't have it on a fold.  By doing that I could maximise my space usage.  With very clever space use and...oh!  pins don't go through suede...I scavenged for some weights. At this point I understood something else the girl said in Auckland - double stick tape?  Why would I need that?  Ohhhh because I can't use pins!  Right.

I squeezed out everything except the front lapels and I thought they could be out of silk or maybe silk backed suede - I really wanted the cuffs and the collar to be suede though, and I fit those on!  And one sleeve had to be sewn together in the middle from two different pieces.

After that crazy cutting I had to take a break.  And buy a walking foot.  Pricey little bugger, so I threw in an invisible zipper foot just because.  Maybe I'll finally have awesome zippers now??  It took another half-week before I was ready to actually consider sewing the leather, but I finally got tired of the suspense.

 This is what happens when the double sided tape touches suede.

 Inside...leather is nice, it doesn't fray!

 After the dart/seam.

 Using double sided tape.

Applying the collar.

I would have been better off cutting out the lining right away and sewing it together first, to get a sense of how the pieces fit together.  I sewed my first pieces together wrong, and had to undo it.  It took awhile to get used to using double sided tape and not sticking it to the sewing machine as I sewed.  I used a normal needle - the jeans needle was actually too thick and the machine didn't mind a normal needle.  I did not even buy a leather needle because it was so much bigger than the jeans needle.  But this suede is pretty supple and thin.  When I had to go through 4 layers at the seam, it did hesitate slightly.

With the sewalong open at my side, I managed the big neck seam/dart but I had to do it in pieces, with the dart last, so that I could get all the sticky tape off first to maneuver better.  While I was working on the sleeves I realised that by completely ignoring the nap, I was putting some beautiful pieces to the inside, but there was nothing to be done for that.  At times it was necessary because of those sticky tags.  Any piece of double sided tape that I stuck to the jacket left a mark, so I placed them only in the seam allowance.

The first sleeve took a looooong time to ease in.  This was also because of some bad luck - my sleeve piece was thin and eased a lot, whereas the jacket piece was a slightly thicker and less stretchy leather.  So it was slow going but success at the end!  Also I'm not sure why I expected the lining to be easier to work with...silk is soooo slippery and I suffered trying to ease the arms in.  I did a full lining.  I made the lapels from silk and they are so pretty...but I didn't actually want the lapels to be out of lining material and when I taped them on I still didn't like the look.  So I made a second set of lapels that are leather front and silk back (I didn't have enough leather left for full leather lapels).  I interfaced the silk.  The walking foot was not totally marvelous here - when I sewed the leather onto the interfaced silk, it still slid forward some.  That luckily didn't influence the final size of the lapels and they fit fine.

 The hardest part was attaching the silk to the leather because the tape didn't stick to it as well.  That was when the walking foot was almost certainly necessary.

 Lining in!  I understitched the lining, but then also turned everything in and understitched the leather side too. It's not really visible when wearing the jacket.

 Actually not much trouble with the cuffs but there is a tiny gap.

 I haven't sewn the lapels down but I am tempted to.  Wanted to wear them out for a weekend first and see what I thought.

But now I have a set of pretty silk lapels.  What to do with them?  Any ideas?

As for finishing - I had some trouble getting the front corners tucked in and I had to hand sew them.  But really the less said about hand sewing leather, the better.  I have holes in my thumb to prove it...was very wishing for a thimble!  I didn't iron the silk seam up so I was guessing as I went and the lining in the back does fall slightly low when I wear the jacket, but I don't care!

My jacket is awesome!  I wore it all weekend in Auckland, including to the opera, and my fabulous friend Ellie took the photos posing in Newmarket station.