Monday, January 7, 2013

Respect!

Recently my husband bought a guitar strap with leather ends.  He wound up cutting it apart to modify it, and wanted me to sew a seam to reinforce what he'd done.  I was pretty sure my machines could sew through leather, but I asked the good people on the Treadle On mailing list for advice before I tried.

It turns out that sewing leather is a lot different than sewing quilting cotton, so I decided not to sew his guitar strap yet.  But, I was sufficiently inspired to try sewing leather.  One generous Treadle On member mailed me a package of leather scraps to play around with.

This evening I tried it out.  I was initially going to use my Singer 27, which is in a treadle base.  But then I decided to use my Singer 66, which is powered by hand crank.  My poor 66 doesn't get much love - I only really use it on quilt guild sewing days.  And 66s with red eye decals, like mine, are dead common and not really sought after by collectors.  Even though the 66 was the finest machine of its time, it doesn't get much respect now.  I decided to see if it could prove itself.

This is the leather piece I started with.  A narrow strip.  The leather wasn't as thick as belt leather, but it wasn't vinyl-thin either.


I sewed one test line on a single thickness of leather, and it went so easily.  Next I doubled the leather up so I was sewing through two pieces.  Easy peasy!  I had to tug it a little to get it to start moving through the machine, but once the machine got going it just glided through.  I used a regular quilting needle, not a leather needle, since I was just playing around.


It sews a nice, tight seam.


I sewed together some more strips and yanked on them as an experiment.  I pulled them apart, but it wasn't my stitches that gave - the thread itself shredded.  I was just using regular polyester thread.  The recommendations I saw said to use upholstery thread or kevlar thread. 

Lovely!  Good job, little red eye!


I haven't seen tutorials on leather sewing projects online...but then again, I haven't looked much.  I'd love to sew something.  I think there might not be much out there because modern sewing machines would have trouble sewing through leather well.  Not my old beast, though! 

I have a new level of respect for my old 66.

9 comments:

  1. Hi Christine! Aren't the Old 66 machines outstanding! My 1919 HC is my go to machine for soooo many things. As far as leather sewing, I have done a coat and am now sewing laptop bags for the boys. Embroidering on leather is a whole different world than cotton/knit. But, I am enjoying it and we can trade experiences. I will put up pics as I go along.

    Have fun with the leather! That is medium weight leather. I have several hides of it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would love to see pictures! I can't believe you made a coat - that's pretty ambitious!

      Delete
  2. Lovely to try something new!
    "Back in the day" leather was usually sewn into garments for casual war by overlapping the seams and topstitching at the edge of each piece, resulting in two visible lines of stitching. That's another leather technique that might be fun to try.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll have to try that out...there's so much to learn!

      Delete
  3. that is actually ow I may do some of the seams on the laptop bag. Traditional seams just won't work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Those vintage Singers can sew through leather with ease. Glad you remember to use that 66.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was really shocked at how easy it was. I was afraid that sewing through leather would be "bad for the machine" and I was afraid to do it for more than a couple seconds at first, but it just went through it so easily. Those old machines are tough!

      Delete
  5. I have a hand crank redeye also, I'm so glad to know that it will sew leather!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's really fun. I need to use my hand crank more. Those 66s are great machines!

      Delete