Pleather Biker Jacket Kwik Sew

Oh boy , I really didnt know what I was getting into when signing up to sew this jacket . Its the Kwik Sew Biker jacketkwik Sew 3764 . Making it in wool would have been a piece of cake but in pleather with a fake fiur facing and collar not quite so easy. The jacket pattern  isnt lined and I have decided that it needs a lining.

The biggest issues with pleather are that it cant be pinned except in the seam allowance and that sewing with anything other than a walking foot is impossible .I found out later in the process that a teflon foot is also good and solved the problem of inserting zippers which a biker jacket has in profusion ! The other issue is that for all intents and purposes it cant be ironed.

All the zipper openings for the pockets and sleeve vents are faced with lining fabric and then the zips are placed inside the box shoped openings . Because ironing isnt an option I needed to control these facings with understitching which isnt alluded to in the pattern. I sewed the zip tapes onto the facing using my teflon foot and then used strips of Tear Away stabilizer under my zipper foot to top stitch the zips in place from the outside using my zipper foot. . This worked quite well but.I later decided that I wasnt happy with this and actually used strips of pleather bought by the meter to cover up this stitching and top stitched again using the teflon foot and was able to actually do this the width of the foot away from the zipper opening . This meant that my stitching was much better quality.