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Relining a leather biker jacket the easy way

Well, if you can sew a straight seam or whipstitch over an edge, there is a really simple solution that you can do easily at home.

You will need:

• A flannel shirt that is big enough to cover the inside of the coat, not including the cuffs and collar.
  You want a large or extra large men's flannel shirt. Pick one in colors that you like. Thrift shops are great for this. You might luck out and find an odd printed one from the 80's - I had one that was black with a large purple paisley motif.
• Needle/thread
• Straight pins and safety pins
• Scissors
• A freind to assist you with the pins.

Preparing the Shirt:

1. Take off the buttons.
2. Remove the cuffs and collar from the shirt. You can just cut them off, leaving about 1/4" to use as seam allowance.
3. If it has breast pockets, leave them on. They will form the interior pockets of your new lining. Leave the tails of the shirt on as well.

Preparing the Coat:

1. Cut out all the remaining lining, leaving about 1/2" around the cuff edges, the collar/zip edge, and the bottom edge of the coat.
2. If you need to replace your outer pockets, you can do it now.
3. If some crumbly yellow stuff falls out of the coat, it is degraded foam lining. You may want to vacuum out the coat before you go any further.

Attaching the shirt to the coat:

1. Put on the shirt, inside out. Put on the coat over the inside out shirt.
2. Straighten the shirt underneath the jacket, making sure that the sleeves aren't bunched or twisted.
3. Pinning your new lining in:
   
   You won't have to fold back the seaming allowance while pinning the shirt in place. This is just to secure the shirt in place so you can sew it down.
   
   
   1. Ask your freind to safety pin the sleeve ends in place, two pins to each sleeve.
   2. Next, lean your head forward so your freind can see the collar. You may need to sit down, so they can see. Have him/her safety pin the center back shirt collar to the center back jacket lining bit.
   3. Adjust the shirt under the coat again.
   4. Safety pin the shirt fronts to the front bottom corners of the coat lining and pin the center back shirtatil to the corresponding point on the center back of the bottom edge of the lining bit. Don't try to fold under the shirttail, just mark it with the safetypin.
   5. Fold back the corners of the collar edge of the shirt (this is the only folding you'll need to do at this stage) so that they match up fairly smoothly with the zip edge lining bit. Safety pin in at least 3 places on each side, making sure the lining isn't too snug.
   6. You might need to re-pin the front bottom corners afterwards.
   7. After you get done pinning, trim off the excess shirttails, about 1" below the bottom edge of the coat.
      
      
4. Take off the coat.
5. Lay it flat, opened up, so the bottom edge is relatively straight.
6. Fold under about 3/4" of the bottom edge of the new lining and pin with straight pins to the remaining bit of lining alog the bottom edge. You will be removing the safetypins as you come to them, folding under the raw edge and pinning back in place with straight pins.
7. Whipstitich the folded under fabric down from about 1" in from the zip edge of the lining to about 1" from the opposite zip edge:
   
8. Fold under the cuff edges and pin with straight pins, then whipstitch down, like you did the bottom edge. Finally, fold under the center back collar and pin. Carefully fold under and pin the collar and side front edges. Whipstich down from center back to bottom corner on each side. Finish sewing down the corners now. Viola! A new lining.

Replacing the outer pockets

1. Buy a pair of new warm fuzzy socks.
2. Cut off the ankle portion so you have a rough pocket shape:
   
3. Then slit the top of sock that opening is same size as the pocket you will be sewing it to:
4. Cut away all but 1/2" or so of the old pocket.
5. Fold the raw sock edge under and whipstitch securely to the remaining pocket fabric.

For breast (wallet) pocket, you can use two squares of fabric, one of the sock cuffs (sewn shut into alittle bag) or a pocket from a shirt. Attach as with other pockets, above.