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EMBROIDERY | EMBROIDERY BASICS
Embroidering this difficult substrate doesn't have to leave you with a raw hide.
I remember well my first face-to-face meeting with leather. A customer requested that small seashell designs be embroidered on thick strips of leather destined to become sandal straps.
We digitized the seashells as outlines, using mainly satin stitches. The test sewout went great, right up to the point where we removed the leather swatch from the machine. Then the stitches fell out of the sample leaving a series of seashell-shaped holes.
Welcome to the wonderful world of embroidering leather. Of all the fabrics a commercial embroiderer will encounter, leather is perhaps the most challenging. There are three simple reasons: leather is expensive, you can't remove the stitches if you make a mistake and it doesn't sew like the woven and knit fabrics we're used to.
Further, all leather is not created equal; it comes in various weights and thicknesses. On one end of the scale are soft, supple forms such as deerskin or lambskin. On the other end are thick, stiff versions used in sandals, shoes and guitar straps.
Because there are so many variations, there is no one secret to dealing with leather. The key is to experiment with different types and determine how to best accommodate specific attributes.
PERFORATION PROBLEMS
To better understand how to deal with leather, you must first understand its characteristics. With wovens and knits, needle holes tend to close back in around the thread. It's not so with leather.
When you embroider on leather, each needle penetration punches a permanent hole in the fabric. With a series of closely spaced needle holes, the result is a perforation - much like you find between sheets on a roll of paper towels. Generally, the thicker and stiffer the...