Thread: DIY Leather
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Old 04-09-2011, 05:34 PM   #20
BigV
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
Posts: 27,063
pic 01: Here's the first stitch, draw tight. Notice I still have a needle on the right and a needle on the left. That's how this process works, I weave these two needles back and forth past each other along the whole seam of the piece. This is different than the stitching in the paddle above. Above, the needle always stays on the right, just pushing a LOOP of thread through for the left hand thread to tuck through, then the point where the threads make a U turn (inside the leather) is pulled into the space between the pieces. The thread is holding against itself. In this method here (the heart), the thread is holding against the leather, not against the thread. This makes it stronger (a smaller bearing surface means more pressure and greater likelihood of breakage in the lockstitch method used on the paddle). The wider surface of a little bridge of leather that the thread bears on makes distributes the strain over a greater area meaning less stress per unit area, therefore less likelihood of breakage.

There's another reason this is much stronger. If you imagine a cross section of the seam made by the lockstitch method above, each thread is held tight to the surface of the leather by the thread on the other side. If one thread breaks, it sets free the thread on the other side. Perhaps you've seen this on some seams. A thread breaks and then on the other side a long continuous length of thread lifts off the surface of the material. But with this crossing method, when one thread breaks, the other thread isn't depending on it to hold tight to the material so it stays close. And the broken thread, on each side of the break, the thread passes back through the full thickness of the leather, instead of a quick U-turn. Much stronger.

pic 02: Many stitches (and a couple breaks and a restarts later), this is the result. I also added the metal ring for attachment to the keyring.
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