Introduction: How to Do a Straight Stitch in Traditional Leatherworking

By New Moon Technocraft
About: MakerQueen is a mother, a wife, a maker, a martial artist, a software engineer, a biochemist, a cat and dog lover, a cosplayer, a gamer, a nerd, a yogi, and a bit of an eccentric mad scientist. She loves to t…

Many teachers take courses in the summer as part of their professional development. Because I work in a school that has MAKER as part of it's curriculum, I am taking some certified developer courses and traditional leatherworking. I love leatherwork. I want to set up a leather studio at my house. I have designed and made a pair of leather baby booties! Here is the stitch you need to know to sew them together. I also used this stitch on my ipad case, wallet, and sketchbook cover.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

You will need:

  • Leather needles (2)
  • Waxed thread
  • Your project - in making your project you stamp holes in the leather to sew through so you will be sewing through holes that already exist.
  • Scissors (for snipping thread at the end)

Step 2: Begin Your Seam

As you can see in the picture above you use 2 needles at either end of your thread. You begin by pulling one needle through both holes and pulling it until your needles have equal lengths of thread and the holes are in the middle of the thread.

Now, this part is tricky. you put one needle in the next hole, pull it tight, move the thread of the stitch you just made over to the side and put the other needle through the back hole. Now both needles go through the first hole again and then the second hole again. The first stitch will have 3 rounds of stitches in it.

Step 3: Stitch

Put your top needle through the holes.

Step 4: Stitch

Pull the thread from your top needle over to the side and put your bottom needle through.

Step 5: Pull!

Pull both sides tight and repeat.

Step 6: Finish Your Seam

When you get to the end of the seam you finish the way you started, by having the top and bottom go around one spot three times. If you look closely at the picture of the sole of the baby booty above you will see the extra volume of thread at the top right.

After you finish your seam put your needle through one hole so your thread is now inside the booty. Repeat this with the other needle. Now on the inside of the booty tie 3 or 4 knots and trim the thread very close to the knot. My leathercraft teacher calls this burying the knot.

I hope you enjoyed this explanation of the straight stitch. I will post more leather Instructables soon!

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