Leather & Hexagons

This evening I tried doing some free motion...not quilting, but stitching?  Anyway, I tried it on leather.  I was just curious if it could be done.  Wait, scratch that...I was pretty sure it could be done.  I was curious to see if it could be done by me on my little domestic sewing machine.

I tried it on my Singer 115, which is in a treadle base.  I use the 115 for free motion work, and I kind of have it in my head that the 115 is "dainty"...maybe because I only do fancy free motion quilting on it.  But the truth is, the 115 is just as overbuilt as the rest of my antique machines, and free motion quilting is hard on a machine.  The 115 was able to handle this without a problem.

Full disclosure: I stitched this with an inappropriate needle (a quilting needle, not a heavy leather needle) and inappropriate thread (just regular poly sewing thread, not heavy thread) so that may have impacted the results.

First I stitched two hearts.  The one on the right was my first attempt...as you can see, I lost track of my thread on the left curve of the heart.  The heart on the left turned out better.

I also made a daisy.

After that I practiced a few more seams.  I suppose that the next step for me will be to find a leather project to do, and practice some of the techniques used in that project.  What is the most basic, easiest project someone can sew with leather?

Last weekend was my local Modern Quilt Guild sew day, and I made a few log cabin quilt blocks.  I also nearly finished the hexagons I need for my husband's quilt.

I don't need a ton of hexagons...they're just going to be in a line down one side of the quilt.   I need to make three purple ones, and then I'm done!  I need to get some background fabric.

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.