|
Sewing leather and fur do
not differ too much from sewing other types of material. The
key to sewing leather is to always try your stitch on a piece
of scrap before you start the actually sewing and then make
sure you have your pattern accurate for the piece you will be
sewing. The reason this is so crucial is that once you have
stitched leather, if you make a mistake and need to undo the
stitch, the leather will be weakened and you will be left with
holes.
Another tip is that depending on the thickness of the leather
or fur, you want to lengthen your stitch to three or more.
Obviously, the thicker the seam will be, the longer you need
to make the length of the stitch. If you make your stitch too
small, what happens is that the leather is punctured too close
together, causing tears.
Another important tip is that you should always leave long
threads at both the start and end of the seams so you can tie
them off by hand. The only time you would use a backstitch is
when the seam will be encased or crossed over by another seam.
You can keep the seams together simply by placing a very
small, strong in the seam allowance when sewing leather.
As you work with patterns, you will discover that leather
garments have the same interfacing in the same locations just
as you would find with other types of material. If you need to
fuse your leather, an excellent product on the market called
Leather Fuse is made specifically for leather. With this
solution, the leather is fused quicker and at lower
temperature settings, as not to damage the leather.
Now keep in mind that if you need to press an area of a
pattern down, you can by using a small amount of steam. Since
leather goes through a quality tanning process, there is no
need to worry about shrinkage. Just be sure you place a brown
paper press cloth in between the iron and the leather and
never leave the iron sitting on the leather for very long.
If you are sewing leather with thick spots, you can use a
rubber mallet to pound them out. However, you will need to
protect the leather by covering it with paper or cloth to
ensure you do not scratch or dent the leather.
If you are sewing leather that is more casual, you can use
lapped seams. Simply topstitch to hold the seam allowance and
then with a single-hole throat plate, you can stitch, which
will keep the stitching nice and straight.
As you are sewing leather garments, you might experience
skipped stitches. If this happens, do not stop stitching, just
keep going. What you want to do is when you have finished all
the machine stitching, go back, and stitch over those skipped
areas by hand. Start by anchoring the needle between the
layers of the garment and then bring it up through the first
skipped hole.
Now, pass the needle over the thread of the floating thread
that was skipped and then pull the needle back through the
hole. Be sure you pull the stitch tight and do this for each
skipped stitch. This way, you keep the integrity of the
machine stitching in tact while providing reinforcement. |
