I want to share my experience of learning to sew leather with a sewing machine and the issues I encountered along this process. Watch the full process here.

Generally, I hand-sew all the leather projects to date, and I decided to experience binding leather on a sewing machine.

Initially, there were several issues with sewing leather on a sewing machine predominately sewing machine tension. I'll delve into more detail.

1. the needles passing through the material with the bobbin thread did not attach or were getting muddled.
2. the consistency of thread finishing was not consistent and became loose.
3. the needle was difficult to pass through the layers of leather material.

Despite reading so much information from so many online resources, it can be overwhelming or confusing how to approach fixing these issues. I started off changing my sewing machine with leather tools and as I practiced sewing leather on the sewing machine, I learned and adjusted the machine according to each project.

I decided to switch to:

1. the sewing thread for Guterman 100% Polyester - thicker and sturdier for leather projects.
2. Schmetz 100/16 sewing needle (130/705).

These changes in materials and tools enabled a sturdier sewing experience and better outcome to the finishing results. You will need to adjust the tension which varies depending on the thickness of the leather material. There is no accurate instruction to fix this for your project permanently due to various factors that can affect the project. You can take the key learnings and practice making the necessary adjustments on a project basis.

5 Key learnings:

1. Use a sturdier thread.
2. Use leather needles, preferably.
3. Gather scrap materials with the same thickness and practice adjusting the tension and running this a couple of times to ensure the top and bottom thread finishing is tight and consistent. Keep scraps as you work through many projects.
4. For thicker materials, it may be difficult to glide through the start of the project, so you can use a scrap piece at the beginning of the materials and line up the sewing for ease.
5. Remember to backstitch at the start and end.

For a full listing of all the materials used in my craft projects, you can find them here>

Stay tuned for more blogs and videos on my journey.