Sewing with LEATHER.

[Pool Cue Ronin]

Anyone have any helpful advice with sewing with leather? I've never sewn with it before, and am quite nervous about it.
HELP PLZ!
*gets on hands and knees*

[katchoo]

ooohhh... me too! I might need some leather tips also! Thanks so much!

[Koumori]

www.tandyleather.com has a few questions and answers about sewing/gluing leather on their site.

[hoshikage]

I'd recommend a) using a heavyweight needle, and having several extras in case one breaks, b) using heavy thread if possible as well (upholstery thread does come in fewer colors...), and c) using a long stitch length. If you make your stitch length too short, there is a chance that the leather may tear along the seam, exactly like a perforated line on a piece of paper enables it to tear away more easily.

Good luck!

[Resuka]

How thick is the leather you are sewing? If it's garment weight (supple and rather thin, lighter than what is commonly used for jackets) then you should be able to sew it just fine on a machine, provided you follow the above advice and use the right needle and thread ^_^ I've also found that using a zigzag stich helps keep my leather and heavy vinyl garb from tearing- again, as stated above, using a longer stitch.

For thicker leathers (like shoe leather) you may need to prepunch the holes and stitch the pieces together by hand- unless you have one of those great old cast iron machines, which can sew thick leather with very few problems.. Handsewing thick leather without prepunched holes can be a pain, but is still very possible if you have a steel thimble and enough hand stength to punch the needle through.

Note: I've found that I need to sew rather slowly when using a machine on leather- sometimes manually trurning the drive wheel to get the needle through if the machine 'hesitates' instead of using the foot pedal.

[Pool Cue Ronin]

Wow, excellent advice from everyone.
Actually, I'm working with both Garment AND shoe leather for my Sol costume.
Punching thru leather isn't as easy as it sounds, but I happen to know where to find one of those leather sewing machines.
Thanks, everybody!

[LLC]

A regular sewing machine can be used for very lightweight leather using a special leather needle available from most sewing machine shops.

It is important though that you try to get a machine with a walking foot as leather will not feed through a machine like cloth.

If you get into making too many rolled edges (folding leather over on itself so that a raw edge is not showing), then depending on how thick the leather is to begin with will be too much for most home machines and could strip the gears.

This applies even more when you mix and match materials. For example, if you want to add lycra to snug the leather close then you will have leather and lycra to get through.

One last cavet is that to get certain colours, you might have to go to a slightly thicker weight leather since garment grade is not always available in certain colours.

[Dark Vision]

I know a couple of things. A leather needle is required. A leather needle ripps through the material rather than an ordinary needle that pierces. Also leather doesn't take kindly to mistakes. So be slow with it because small mistakes can be saved.