McCall's 6402 - Leather + Wool black mini skirt

If you will recall, mixed material clothing was item #5 in my fall/winter must haves list. First I made the Johathan Saunders knock-off dress in leather and wool. Now I've completed my second garment in that category, a leather and wool mini skirt:

It was super bright outside when we were taking these photos!

This is my third time to use leather, and I am definitely gaining confidence with it! I was able to squeeze the pieces for this skirt out of that same skin I used for the above mentioned dress as well as the accents for this jacket. With my second black skin I plan to make some leather shorts. (Not sure if I'll get to those this winter or not.)

I liked this pattern for the interesting side pieces and the idea of doing them in leather. (Although on their example they used pleather.) I used my TNT waistband and did only minor adjustments to the muslin. This was a pretty easy garment except for the intersecting sides where the leather points all meet. THAT was no picnic. I had to use pins, people. On leather. But I only pinned in the seam allowances so none of the puncture marks show on the outside. It worked out well in the end.

I hemmed the bottom wool gabardine by hand and used some leather glue for the leather. BTW, both the leather and the wool gab were purchased from Fabricmartfabrics.com. They have excellent sales on skins from time to time and I now have a few different colors in my stash.

The back invisible zipper was no fun to put in either. This skirt is snug, and for some reason the zipper was poking out at the bottom giving me a tail bump. I'm sure you've all experienced that from time to time while putting in a zipper. I'm telling you, I could not find a solution. Easing in the fabric did not correct the problem. I thought about moving the zipper to the side seam, but could not fathom trying to get the sides to match up again with the added issues of an invisible zipper. After a few days of feeling sad every time I passed it on my dressform, I thought to take out the extra fabric in the back at the center bottom of the leather panels. (I took out 3/8" of the wool gab at the center back tapering to nothing a few inches towards the sides.) Don't ask me why this worked but the tail bump went away. AND I figured out that it can be helpful to hand baste in an invisible zipper if it is being particularly difficult.

Here is the envelope picture:

I did add a full lining in black Ambiance which I didn't take a picture of since we are having a string of overcast days. For the lining, I was able to use the back of view D, but had to use the pieces from view A for the front.

I'm very happy with this skirt. It gives textural interest to a basic black bottom pairing and is a fun trend to participate in.