You can sew leather on a seagull sewing machine. Tools and features of working with leather

Leather goods have always been highly valued. This material is widely used in tailoring, making various accessories and even jewelry. Unfortunately, the skin is quite whimsical, you should work with it with special care. Therefore, if you decide to make any crafts, we will tell you how to sew leather on sewing machine correctly, so that the finished product will serve you for a year.

Varieties and types of leather

The general appearance and thickness of the skin depends entirely on the raw materials from which it was made, as well as on the technology of dressing. Accordingly, the material is divided into grades, from which finished products are made in the future. For example:

• soft leather is used for sewing the vest;
• for bags it is best to take a hard grade;
• as for the manufacture of jewelry, in this case it is most appropriate to use soft kid skin.

Necessary tools for work

Before sewing leather at home, you need to take into account the fact that it has many of its “secrets” and nuances. They should be known and applied while working with this material:

• When cutting out details, it should be remembered that the skin in its structure in the transverse direction is stretched much more than in the longitudinal direction. Accordingly, if the details of the pattern are paired, they should be cut in the same direction.

Important! It is impossible to chip the skin with pins, as traces remain that will be visible on the finished product.

• Depending on the type of material with which you are working, you should select and necessary tools. For example, soft leather can be sewn on a sewing machine using #80 and #90 needles. As for the coarse grade, in this case it is best to work manually using a special needle, in which the tip is made in the form of a triangular tip.

Important! When sewing leather on a sewing machine, the stitch length should not be too fine. This is due to the fact that due to frequent punctures, the material at the joints will simply break.

• The skin incision also needs to be made with a special instrument. For these purposes, a shoe (furrier's) knife is best suited.

Important! Such material should be cut on a plastic surface or plexiglass, since if the process is carried out on a wooden base, the knife will simply crash into it.

In addition to the above tools, you will also need:

• Thimble;
• rubber glue;
• Strong synthetic threads;
• Adhesive seam enhancer;
• Hammer;
• Awl.

How to sew leather at home?

Depending on the type of material you have chosen for the future product, the presence of any skills and knowledge, leather can be stitched at home in three ways:

• Needle;
• Crochet;
• On a sewing machine.

We sew the skin with a needle

To flash this material with a needle, you need to follow the following sequence of actions:

• Draw a line on the material by extrusion, which will serve as a guide in subsequent work.
• Using a hammer and a punch, make the number of holes you need along the line.

Important! While making holes, a piece of thick rubber should be placed under the material.

• Open the finished holes.
• Place the material in the clamp. Now you can move on to stitching. You can sew with a saddle stitch, “needle forward” or join the pieces with a seam over the edge.

Important! If desired, you can work with two needles at the same time, and to facilitate the work, pre-rub them with wax.

How to crochet leather

If you do not have a special needle, do not despair. You can do a great job with a crochet or an awl. This should be done very carefully, because, unfortunately, stitching leather parts in this way, they can be easily damaged.

The procedure is as follows:

1. Hold the awl or hook in one hand, and the prepared overcast in the other.
2. Make a hole on the outside of the workpiece and insert the hook into it.
3. Make a loop of thread from the wrong side, stretch it with a hook to the front side of the workpiece.
4. Disconnect the hook and pull on one end of the thread. As a result, you will have one end of the thread on the front side, and the other on the wrong side.
5. Make another hole in the material.
6. Insert a hook into the hole and hook the thread from the inside. Pull it up so that its tip rises above the front side at a height of about 10 millimeters.
7. Release the hook, and pull a piece of the previously obtained thread into the resulting loop.
8. Tighten the stitch, then pull the thread from the inside.
9. At the end of all the work, as soon as the first and last stitch touch, take a few steps in the opposite direction. The thread should be pulled into the old holes.

How to sew leather on a household machine?

I would like to start right away by saying that you can sew leather on an ordinary sewing machine, but not thick. A sewing machine can easily cope with a material thickness of about 1-1.5 millimeters, but with an already denser one, you will have to tinker with it manually. The sewing process itself is similar, the only difference is that you first have to create special “conditions” for your working tool:

• The needle for sewing leather should be special, with a round cross section. The end of such a needle has sharp edges, but due to its non-standard shape, it easily pierces the material, while gently pushing the fibers apart without cutting through them.
• If the needle fails to cut a hole during operation, you can set the needle to a tighter setting or change to a thinner fabric.
• If there are difficulties with the threads and they do not tighten, try replacing them with linen or nylon.
• In order for the conveyor to easily cope with the advancement of the material, purchase a special roller, fluoroplastic or teflon foot.

Important! Very often, in order not to spend money on acquiring an additional foot, experienced tanners lubricate the pattern with oil, sprinkle it with talc, or simply help with their hands to advance during work.

And finally, we want to offer you a few good advice, which will be useful to you during the manufacture of various leather products:

• Try to choose patterns that do not require landing. As for intricate shapes, they are best done with intricate seams rather than darts.
• When tailoring, avoid kimono sleeves. It is best to work with a shirt cut, as it has a deep armhole.
• When working with leather, you should use already proven patterns. If this is not possible, sew a trial item from another material.
• Before cutting from the wrong side of the material, mark the holes and various irregularities that you can get around while cutting out the parts. It is better to do this with a ballpoint pen or pencil.
• During cutting, the skin is stretched in different directions. Therefore, it is very important to observe the correct direction of paired parts.

Important! When cutting

Many needlewomen have to deal with leather in their work. Products made from this material look very impressive and stylish. But this material is not as easy to process as it might seem at first glance. Consider the basic parameters of work, as well as how to sew leather on a sewing machine, what threads to work with.

What should be prepared

When working with leather, there are a lot of different features and little things, and if you are unfamiliar with them, you are unlikely to be able to get a good job with this material. For example, if you need to cut out the same parts, it is worth remembering that in transverse position the material is better stretched than in the longitudinal. Based on this, we can conclude that you can cut paired parts in any direction, but always in the same direction.

How to work with natural material on a sewing machine

For many, such work may seem like an impossible task, but if you approach the task with skill, you will certainly succeed.

Consider how you can sew genuine leather so that when you move on to this stage of work, you will not have any difficulties.

• First you need to fold the parts to each other with the front sides. Align the edge. For the purpose of fixing, you can use clips or clothespins.
• Adjust the stitch length on the technique to 3.5-4 mm. Sew a stitch to the length you want.
• On each side, it is necessary to leave a thread with a length of at least 4 cm, for ease of processing.
• The edges of the threads must be pulled to one side, where you can tie them with a double knot.
• Glue will need to be applied to allowances and knots. Expand them and press them to the base.

If desired, you can perform a finishing line.

1. When making clothes using natural material, it must be ironed from the back, while the iron should not be too hot. Use a dry cloth for ironing, do not use steam.
2. In order to prevent the parts from stretching, you need to use a special foot.
3. Fasten the seams more securely with a couple of knots, otherwise you risk that the seams will simply unravel.
4. To work, you will certainly need to use glue. In this case, PVA or Moment is suitable, it can also be rubber glue.

Features of work

Here are some tips for sewing leather and leatherette products, so that in the end the result will please you.

Many people like to do something with their own hands, for example, sewing various items of clothing, handbags, slippers, shoes for babies, car seat covers and furniture from artificial leather. I must admit that many people do it just fine! Some manage to make souvenirs of amazing beauty from leatherette: hairpins, jewelry, applications, paintings, wallets, purses. Each item is colorfully decorated, unique, and can serve as a worthy gift for loved ones. In many cases, in the process of work, it is required to cut and sew parts made of artificial leather.

We make a pattern

We lay out the parts cut out of cardboard on the wrong side of the artificial leather and draw around the contour. If you want to fix the patterns, do not use pins! They leave footprints on the skin. You can stick them with tape.

Duplicate some elements

When sewing clothes made of fabric or artificial leather, it is required to substitute dense pads made of dublerin or other materials under the sides and lower collar. If you are working with leatherette on a dense basis, then doublerin is substituted only under the loops. If you are sewing faux leather with a knit backing that stretches well, use adhesive or non-adhesive spacers where you would lay them when working with the fabric.

Sewing pieces on the machine

To work with artificial leather, special machine needles are produced with ends beveled on both sides. Regular needles No. 80-100 will also work. Threads are better to use polyester universal. Finishing stitches and loops are performed using finishing stitches.

If you start sewing leatherette parts with a conventional machine, the result may upset you: the presser foot does not slide well on the work surface, the seams come out crooked. Do not despair! There are several ways to help you get the job done right:

• you can use a special Teflon foot (see figure below);
• when working with a conventional universal foot, you need to set its pressure on the material to a minimum level, adjust the stitch length to 3.5 - 4 mm, lubricate the foot and the surface of the leather with soap for better glide;
• some put transparent (so that the seam is visible) tissue paper under the needle, then tear it off on both sides along the seam line. The method is not very convenient, but many have acquired a certain skill and use it successfully;
• It seems simple and effective to us to stick a strip of adhesive tape on the sole of the foot, leaving a hole for the needle. This greatly improves glide.

After stitching on a typewriter, we drag in a basting from the finished product. To avoid leaving traces of the needle, the basting must initially be done with a thin needle. It is not recommended to rip a machine seam, as a chain of small holes will be visible. If you want to sew on a zipper, you need to glue it with a glue stick before sewing it in.

You can iron artificial leather with a non-hot iron on the wrong side, putting an iron on the sole of the iron. Not all types of leather respond well to such ironing, so it’s worth trying it on a small piece first. If the material does not tolerate heat with an iron, just cover the rumpled areas with a damp cloth, they will straighten themselves out after a while.

Seams on artificial leather, as a rule, are not ironed. So that they do not bulge, you can do the following:

• beat them off with a rubber mallet;
• spread the allowances on two sides and sew or glue on the wrong side.

Before sewing leather, read our tips. They will help you avoid many mistakes and save time. After all, contrary to numerous statements, working with leather, especially natural, is quite simple. Leather is a very noble natural material, which has a very complex character and at the same time fits perfectly, looks chic in products and, importantly, wears for a long time without losing its appearance.

Secrets of tailoring leather goods

1. Genuine leather is sold in pieces, which, due to the natural origin of the material, may have various color defects, holes and irregularities.
Therefore, going to the store for leather, take the entire set of patterns with you. So you can accurately buy the number of pieces that you need.

2. Details of the product must not be swept away with a needle and thread, as perforation marks remain on the skin.

Therefore, before performing a machine stitch, fasten the parts together with the same pins with which you pin the patterns to the fabric, but you need to stick them perpendicular to the seam, along the seam allowance, in no case go beyond the seam line. Sew directly over the pins, remove the pins after stitching.

Rice. 1. Stitching leather parts

3. The sewn parts of the product cannot be torn at the seams for the same reason - traces of the needle remain.

Therefore, advice: sew leather products only according to proven patterns, according to which you have already sewed before and which will not require you to make any changes.

Advice: sew the product that you planned to sew from leather, from mock-up fabric. So you can make all the necessary changes to the pattern and boldly cut the skin according to the proven pattern.

Rice. 2. Glue, hammer and leather foot

4. After completing the stitch, the seam allowances must be laid out in different directions, tapped with a hammer (you can buy it at the hardware store, in extreme cases, you can use an ordinary iron hammer) so that they “smooth out”, the seam allowances are glued to the product using special glue for the skin.

In the event that the skin is thin and soft, allowances can be smoothed out with a slightly heated iron through a slightly damp cloth.

Attention! Before stroking the skin, be sure to try on an unnecessary piece.

5. If according to the model it is required to sew along the seams, sew them without any thread basting, and in order for the line to lie parallel to the seam, guide it, guided by the foot of the sewing machine (it should go along the edge of the seam).

Extra tip: so that the foot advances the skin well and does not stretch it, as you move, lubricate the skin in front of the foot with vegetable oil. This will ensure that the skin moves smoothly under the foot, and the excess oil remaining on the skin can be easily removed. soft cloth. Use a special skin needle.

Skin needle

6. The lining for leather products is sewn in the same way as for products made of ordinary fabric.

7. Leather products are not washed, but dry-cleaned.

If the skin becomes rough or loses its original appearance, it can be smeared with ordinary glycerin with a sponge and left for a day - it will again become soft and acquire its original color.

All tips related to natural leather equally apply to artificial leather products, with the only difference being that you can accurately calculate the required amount of fabric per product.

Artificial leather is made both on a fabric and knitted basis. If you are using knitted leather for your garments, remember that it can stretch both longitudinally and transversely. When sewing parts under the presser foot, tension on the upper part may occur, which can lead to its elongation and deformation. To prevent this from happening, the parts are duplicated with a special low-temperature cushioning fabric, which is glued to the parts with an iron at minimum temperatures without damaging the skin itself.

To prevent the leather from stretching under the foot when sewing finishing seams, place a strip of tracing paper under the foot. After sewing, the paper can be easily removed.

Now you know how to sew leather! Subscribe to free lessons of Anastasia Korfiati Sewing School!

A wide variety of artificial leather is presented in modern stores. With all the advantages of this material - ease of care and sewing, beautiful appearance, very similar to genuine leather, - it continues to attract lovers of needlework with its relatively low price.

However, in order for artificial leather products to please the eye, you need to familiarize yourself with some of the nuances of sewing this material. There are not very many of them - much less than when it comes to real leather. Still, knowing these rules will greatly facilitate the work.

There are only three problems:

1. The skin sticks to the foot, slowing down the sewing machine. The machine seems to “trample” in one place.
2. Punctures from a sewing needle are clearly visible on the surface of the material.
3. The skin often tears under the stitches.

In accordance with these features, you can give some tips for working with artificial leather.

At the stage of cutting out, trying on and preliminary basting, it should be remembered that the use of pins and a hand needle is strictly prohibited, since punctures cannot be avoided in this case. Instead, you can, for example, put some kind of weight on a pattern that should be traced onto the fabric.

It is advisable to cut the details of the cut not with scissors, but with a special circular knife. At the same time, you need to put a flat board or glass down, which will not be a pity to cut. If you need an even cut, you can use a plastic ruler.

To work on sewing machine you need to purchase a special foot, made of Teflon or equipped with rollers. This contributes to artificial leather does not slow down, moving freely. If such a foot could not be found, then during the sewing process, a strip of waxed paper can be applied on top of the skin - this will facilitate the movement of a regular foot. When the stitching is done, you need to carefully tear off the paper along the sides of the seam, and then remove the remnants.

Another way is to simply lubricate the skin with oil (machine or vegetable).

The sharpest needles should be chosen, as this will make the puncture less noticeable. For example, jeans needles are suitable. There are, of course, special needles for tailoring genuine leather, but for artificial they are no longer very suitable. It must also be remembered that leatherette dulls them much faster than other fabrics, so the needle should be changed as often as possible.

The stitches should be fairly long. If the stitch is short, the thread is too tight and may damage the material. That is why skin tears can often be observed between needle punctures. To avoid this, you can use a “zigzag” instead of a simple straight stitch.

When sewing, it is convenient to use small hairpins or even invisible hairpins to pre-connect parts. In this way, the edges of the parts to be sewn can be aligned, and when the foot approaches the clamping point, the invisibility should simply be removed.

In order for the stitching not to wag and look neat, it is better not to set the stroke too fast. The slower you sew, the better the result will be.
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