Loppemarked and Leather

I took up sewing about a year ago, just for fun, too much free time I suppose...

Plus I already inherited husband's grandmother's sewing machine, which although bought in 1964 is running like a champion (her lack of skill for sewing might have something to do with that :D).
And I've been putting up my finished projects, not on my blog, but on a sweing site/forum, which might have something to do with self-consciousness, or that it's a way too girly hobby, or I don't know...a sort of transition period between "this is too girly" and "It's cool to be wearing something I made myself AND getting complimented on it".

How it was

Anyway, some managed to talk me into blogging about it too. Well, given the cobwebs that tend to grow on this blog every now and then, I thought why not. And this particular project seemed like a good place to start.

I've never been to a loppemarked (flea market) before this time, but with my creativity sensors set to max, I was set on a mission: See treasures in trash...and challenge myself to actually do the transformation.

Ripped apart and transformed into new pattern pieces

I have to say the selection available was not surprising. If I had this stuff, I'd have gotten rid of it myself long time ago. But one item of clothing did catch my eye...It was a bit worn out, probably from the 80s, a bomber jacket of genuine leather! And they wanted the extortionate amount of... wait for it... 40 NOK for it :D And the thought materialized straight away. I can tear this apart and make something I like, and it'll be genuine leather!

The good thing about this is that I went into this with a very relaxed state of mind. If I damage it, it's OK, it costed me only 40 kroner. I think I can live with that...And it did start OK, I found a pattern for a vest that I thought would fit into the different bits of the jacket...I managed to successfully rip the jacket apart without damaging any pieces, although that proved a very boring job!...Only one of my pattern pieces didn't fit on one piece of leather so it became two pattern pieces and that went OK.

The usual mess :D

There were also a lot of "gasp" moments along the way...oh my God! Will my machine manage to sew leather? oh my God! Will I manage to get the lining in properly? oh my God! Did I cut too small a size? etc...

Thankfully it went well, and although some innovation (read laziness induced cheating) was involved, the end result isn't bad. As with almost every new project, there were lessons learned. I even got an unintentional compliment from my husband :D "wow, you even managed to reuse some of the stitching!", I did not, every stitch on this vest is made by moi :)

The end result...

I can also claim this is rather invironmentally friendly as I borrowed the magazine with the pattern from the local library, resued the leather, the lining material, and the zipper. Even the thread used is stuff I inherited with the sewing machine. So far this is the cheapest thing I've ever made :D
Whether I'll be wearing it or not is yet to be decided, but I consider this a successful refashion experiment :)

P.S. If there's an interest in past projects, there's a little link on the right side of my blog ;)
P.P.S. I got rather frustrated with the amount of work required for this vest, that I made myself a skirt right after, using a simple pattern and just a few hours of work (the one in the first picture here)