If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you may have already seen a bit of this jacket refashion underway! It's a vintage Pendleton wool blazer that my mom gave to me after clearing out her closet. It had a handful of moth holes and spots where the wool has worn thin that I embroidered over already with some wool threads.
In order to do all my embroidery, I carefully removed the lining since it was pretty damaged anyway. Now that I've finished my embroidery, it's time to install a new lining!
If you want to work on a similar project, you'll need:
Damaged lining- as intact as possible
Seam ripper
Chalk
Safety pins or pins
Trace wheel (pins can also be used)
Pattern paper (newspaper or anything works really)
New lining fabric- something slippery works best! I used an old polyester dress
Iron- Seriously, you need to iron on every step here and it can't be skipped!
Hem tape or bias tape
Hand sewing materials
First things first, you're going to have to remove your old damaged lining by carefully seam ripping it from the outer jacket. There should be a few spots where it sewn with a heavier thread to an inner seam (this is called tacking), make sure to mark where those spots are with a safety pin so you can replicate it later if you like. You're also going to want to carefully pick apart every seam of your lining so you can get the individual pieces so that they also have the seam allowance.
Label what your pieces are with chalk or pencil so you don't get confused later. My lining has 6 pieces to keep straight! @_@
I chose to leave the sleeves alone in this project because they were in okay shape and they were tacked in at the cuffs more than I wanted to mess with. But if you want to replace sleeves, you should still be able to follow this same process!
Take your pattern pieces and trace them on to your pattern paper. You only need to trace each piece once so that they will be symmetrical. So even though I have 6 pattern pieces, I'm only tracing 3 patterns. Make sure that you add in a seam allowance, I found that some of my pieces were damaged along the seam so I added a little more allowance in those areas. This is for the easy pattern pieces (i.e. NO darts or Gussets). Go ahead and cut out your fabric for this.
How to replicate diamond dart in a jacket
My lining has a dart at the sides and a pleat in the back pieces that I need to replicate. To mimic the princess darts, I seam ripped open the triangle of the original lining and opened it fully. I lined up my paper pattern piece under the original, and traced over the sewing line of the dart with my trace wheel. You can also stab holes with a pin! This will give a pretty accurate mark of where your dart is, which you can trace over with pen on your pattern and clean up with a straight edge. To mark your new lining fabric with the dart location, pin the points of the triangles, pull off the pattern (you'll have a few pin holes) and mark with chalk. Sew up the darts!
How to replicate gusset in a jacket
Then for center back pieces of my lining there is a pleat with a seam in the middle. Carefully seam rip and note where the seams are, then trace a main pattern piece (that is symmetrical) and trace on the gussets. My gusset has one side that is folded under and the other side is flat. Make sure you add seam allowance to the gusset! Below are the pictures for how I put together my new lining fabric.
Phew, if you made it this far you just completed the hardest part! Go you!!
Now that all your pieces have the darts and gussets they need, sew all the new lining pieces together so you have one big jacket lining. If you haven't already, zigzag the edges of your lining.
Now we need to attach the lining! Flip the pretty side of your lining so that it's facing the rightside of the inner jacket lapels, carefully lining up the seam locations before pinning/clipping. You're going to do this for the center back, attaching it to a piece of fabric connected to the collar and all down the inner sides of the jacket along where the buttons and buttonholes are. Make sure to leave about an inch at the bottom hem loose so we can deal with it later. Flip right side out when you're done!
Next we're tackling the arm holes! I had to do a bit of mending on mine since I didn't replace them all together. Make sure any shoulder pads are attached or removed and out of the way and then line up the sleeve with the new shoulder hole and pin making sure you don't twist the fabric. We need to hand sew this seams with a ladder stitch, so you will be sewing along two small folded edges for a clean finish.
Ok, we're almost done- now we just need to finish the bottom hem of our lining! We need to make sure that the lining isn't visible from the outside while we wear it. So fold up the bottom hem so it sits behind the main lining and iron down. Try it on at this point to check your work! Flip the lining and jacket inside out and sew a hem tape along the bottom zigzag edge that you just folded up. Then sew it down to the main lining. This will keep the lining from unfolding but you'll still have access to the inner parts of the jacket for future repairs.
And BOOM you have a flashy new jacket lining. Go forth and refresh all the cool jackets abandoned in your closets!!
If you try this project, I'd love to see! Tag @Sunny_Salvage on Instagram or Facebook and follow me on Pinterest for more upcycling ideas! Hope you feel inspired to mend something instead of making or buying brand new!
