Adventures with upcycled leather - Real leather leggings and elastic waisted leather skirt

This was an accidental project really. I was gifted a suede skirt a year ago and remodelled this. Despite I am not really into real leather, I found this a very rewarding exercise. It challenged me to do something with a new material that I would never have otherwised played with. I had to learn new techniques and think differently.

So then a few months later I find several leather items in a charity shop and think I will have another go. The skills needed are slightly different to those for sewing fabric. For example you must use a leather needle and walking foot and the stitch size etc is important. But by then the weather has warmed up and they stayed stored in a bag in my stash. 

I am very taken with the currently very popular leather leggings. I already have several me made faux pairs. However I do not have £200 upwards to spend on something like this. And thats the cheapest I have found - and this is all despite the morals of wearing leather. I do not have the same morals for upcycling leather because its just takes forever to degrade in landfill - 65+ years for some items. Thats my excuse anyway.

A few years ago a vegetarian friend of mine justified buying a second hand leather sofa by this arguement and I have to say it gave me food for thought. Its a very compelling arguement that you should reuse things especially when they take so long to break down in landfill.  Vegetarian or not she bought her sofa, did it up and expect it will live for a long time yet.

I found these second hand black leather trousers in a charity shop for just £2.

 

So seeing these trousers for £2 I think I will have a go at making some leggings. The leather is not very stretchy though, so probably they are going to be more tight trousers than leggings but for £2, I will give this a go.

First of all I washed all of these items. I do not care you cannot wash leather. Its been worn by someone else so I wash it carefully - in my washing machine though I stop the cycle after a few turns and spin and dry. Then I dried them in my boiler house on hangers. We have heating oil so there is a large cupboard but I have previously dried something in the sunshine too so it does not have to be a boiler house, and oiled the leather using massage oil - as I discovered when I made my armour this works really well. It soaks in cmpletely and leave no residue at all - probably because of the detergent used when washing the item.

So then I take the trousers to bits carefully. Then search through my patterns and originally go for a very basic pair of leggings. These were a 1 piece pattern - for each leg that is so no side seams. I soon decide this will not work. The original trousers were basic with no pockets but they did have side seams. And darts which I will leave in.

Also normal leather trousers have linings. A small bit of research tells me most current leather leggings have either mesh or stretch cotton as lining. I decide to use a very stretchy power mesh in a rather boring flesh colour.

My leather trousers were 3 sizes larger than my normal size. Despite this I had to add another type of fabric because once cut into a pattern there was not enough for a plain pair of leggings so I had to add some more. In the end I had to change from my basic leggings pattern to use Butterick pattern B5778 which has side stripes.  Then I can get my major front and back pieces from the trousers. I cut a size larger than my usual size to allow for wider seam allowances. Not sure this was necessary but thats what I did. They did come out a bit large. Though maybe I need my normal size bum and top bit but a size up for the legs so abit wider on the legs than leggings, if you get me. I still had to undo the hems to get the length and do some careful cutting. There was not much left over. What to use for side stripes? 

For my side stripes. I bought a Topshop silver leather pleated skirt ages ago when I wanted to make my flame skirt but never used it. Its not at all my style but this silver skirt was pleated giving me lots of fabric. Mine cost me about £3 but there is currently a similar one on Ebay for £20 so if you do this kind of project shop around and wait a little while to collect what you need at the right prices, because things vary hugely in costs. 

Then I cut powermesh panels to line these pieces. Each leg has 3 pieces. I sewed the powermesh to each panel of leather before construction. I do not have any photos of this but I simply sewed inside the seam allowance all round each piece to join the two layers together.

I added small zips to the ankles. This took a while. I could not use a zipper foot. This just would not work with the leather. So I sewed very carefully using the walking foot. At a slow speed its surprisingly acceptable finish-wise. Not perfect, but most people would never guess I sewed these myself. Ankles are a long way away from eye level too! Though I did also sew a zip in the side - more later.

In fact this is possibly one of the most un-professional pairs of trousers when looked at from the inside, but I think they will work. I would have struggled to add a mesh liner if I had already sewn them together.
I was slightly worried the inside seams might be uncomfortable but having now worn these they are fine though at some point I may attempt finishing them properly and gluing all the seams down flat. This will be for aesthetic reasons though rather than for comfort.

Then I sewed the side panels in as the almost final step and tried on.

 

I toyed with missing out the side zip, but they will not go over my bum, so no way round, it they need a zip as well as elastic to pull the waist in.

 

Pretty much like the bought RTW versions. They all seem to have side zips and elastic waists,  so no idea why they call them leggings really. They are actually just very narrow "drainpipe" trousers.

 

I sewed the elastic to the edge of the leather on the right side, folded over and zig zagged all round then sewed down either side of the zip. Its not the neatest I have made but does work and it is leather so hard to make.

 

I did wonder if they would need a hook and eye or a button and loop, but so far they do not come updone when wearing, which is good because its really hard sewing by hand onto leather. I think if they start to come undone  it is probably easier to sew to the lining and elastic rather than the leather. Finally I did not hem the hems. I just chopped the linig fabric off so you do not see it and left them raw - like the H&M version.

I am very happy I managed to line up the original panelled seams so its all very professioal looking.

I had to have 3 sections to each side panel and they were joined together and topstitched before I added the mesh layer. There are a few marks on the leather where the skirt they were made from had pleats, but it doesn't seem to detract really. I think when you upcycle you need to take on board its a preworn item so you need to celebrate the flaws especially when its something like leather when even a new item is rarely perfect.

The silver side stripes might have been better in black leather, but I didn't have any black leather. These, I think, have a very 90s feel to them, but still I am very pleased with them. And costs? Well they we well under £10 even with lining, zips and thread. A bargain. And they do not seem too OTT when wearing despite the silver side panels. Maybe because all the leather is well worn.

It was quite hard to get decent photos of these. The garden had dappled light so we ended up doing two days of photos to get these. Hopefully you can see them well enough because I really would recommend this as a project despite it may take you some time to collect all the bits needed. Or a t an affordable price anyway and I think its worth waiting because you will see cheap leather round and about. Ebay is worth a look especially in summer when people clear out their winter wardrobes but you do need to pay postage on everything there so if possible charity shops and boot fairs are cheaper by far.

The blue hoody was made quite some time ago. Its a good top for when the weather is changing from very cold to summer because its a good one for a warm spring day. The velvet works similar to polar fleece meaning I do not need a thick jumper - at least until evening. The velvet does not feel comfortable under anything that does not slip. This makes it a very difficult top for many normal occassions. The multi colour blocked hoody is new, being made this year from my stashed scraps. Both give completely different feels to the leggings but I think most tops would go well with these really. They are very wearable. Which is probably why real leather leggings are so popular right now!

The same day I bought my leather trousers, I also bought a short dress. Well I never took a photo of this before chopping it up which is a shame but just how it is. I did not know this would all work so well and never expected to be telling people about this particular project. It was a basic shift dress with side pockets. This cost me 99p. It did not fit despite being my usual size. Or maybe I just find leather too constricting for shift dresses. 

 

I chopped it off and folded the top over to form a channel, added elastic loosely and made a wearable and surprisingly comfortable gathered waist skirt. I am seriously considering opening some of the seams on the waistband being as its panelled and adding a  pullcord to complete this as well. It doesn't need it but would suit a pullcord look. I love this style of short skirt and this one is even wearable as a winter work skirt. Though its actually not so very short but it is above the knee. I had to overlock and hem the lining to make it shorter but otherwise I just reused the lining and sewed it with the leather into a waistband.

 

It was quite cold when the skirt photos were taken and this was so warm despite no tights. I can see me wearing this in spring with ankle socks and trainers.

So, thats what I have been up to for the last few weeks in an effort to clear all my UFOs which includes the upcycled leather I have been playing around with. 

 

I have decided though from now on when I see a use-able leather item I will be buying it even when I have no idea what to do with it and for trousers the bigger the size the better because it allows for more variation in designs. Possibly thats the same for skirts too come to think of it because there is not much you can do when altering a leather item that already fits you. Of course you could also use these second hand leather dresses etc for bag making as well.

 Stay safe

Bracken