How to Hand Stitch Leather - Saddle Stitch Tutorial, Beginner Leatherwork

hi I'm go from JH nether and in this video I'm going to show you how to hand stitch leather let's get started [Music] so quick comparison with machine stitching versus hand stitching so with machine stitching that's two lengths of thread and basically lays of twists in the middle of the leather to create the stitch so you'll notice on your clothes if you have a little loose thread and you pull at it you can have a whole lot of length of stitching becomes unstitched that is because it is made up of two lengths of thread so with hand stitching where it's one length of thread basically each stitch is an individual stitch so if one comes sort of long breaks it's not going to unravel because each stitch is individual which is why hand stitching for leather work is just great because you know if you're on a dog collar and that it gets a lot of wear it's you know it's not going to come and stitched right so onto our hand stitching so this exercise is one that I do with students and basically we're gonna take a scrap bit of leather and square the ends and we're also going to Nick the corners I sort of squared your ends you then want to number one edge all the way around the grain side of your leather and then once you done that we can now stain the edges and polish them and switch it on staining you can crease all the way around your leather so you basically need to crease it up and then just draw a line around your sample and worse than that you want to set your dividers to your stitch marking with mine are usually around a quarter of an inch and then you can draw all the way around your sample so onto stitching so I use a number 7 pricking iron so that seven stitches per inch is what I use for most of my dog collars and bounce and that sort of thing I can also use the diamond chisels which I made to go all the way through it is just up to you what you have and what is you use so once you're done stitch marking you want to cut yourself a length of thread so I usually do about a double arm's length and then with some B so actually just want to run the thread through this so this adds a layer of protection to the thread especially if it is linen and it also smooths down any sort of loose fibers so I should run your thread through the wax a few times you can then just run it for your fingers to really work the beeswax into your thread and now we want to start threading so we're going to lock our thread onto the needle so first of all you want to put just about an inch or so off that thread through the eye of the needle and they were actually going to put the needle through the thread itself so we can lock it on so we're going to do this twice so we're gonna have like a little S shape like what I have here and then basically we need to move all that down the needle and then sort of over the end of the eye and that will lock our thread on to our needle so it won't fall off and we're going to do the same on the other end so we're gonna put the thread from the eye of the needle about an inch or so over the way through and then the sort of long end of the thread we're going to put the needle through that twice make a little S shape and then pull the whole lot down over the eye of needle so it's all locked on there so onto the stitching so we're going to start with a back stitch which once you've seen this video a few times and you understand the technique it will make a bit more sense so basically we do a back stitch to lock the thread in place especially for you going onto doing buccal turns and stuff like that you need to do a back stitch to get the ends of your leather together right so like I said you may need to watch some video a few times to get the technique but basically what we want to do is all through our whole from the right hand side first and then we gonna follow that through with the needle from the left I wish your left her need a list of partway through you want to basically make a little cross with your right hand needle underneath and pull that out and then you can sort of turn with your hands and put that right hand needle that made up the tears across back three and then you want to pop the tail of your thread over that needle and then you can pull tight and pull your needle through so that is the basic technique because like I said you might need to watch this a few times just to get the technique right it is a bit confusing to start with and if you find it hard stitching with an awl in your hands you can maybe all a few or if you've got your diamond picking irons and you've all order all the way through you might not even need an awl at all so just to recap we all through from the right follow through the left with a needle make a cross with our right hand needle but I write our needle through and then put the tail end of the thread over the needle so by doing that it makes sure that the stitches all sort of slant the same way and so if you need to change your thread because you've run out and you're stitching a long distance or you just come to finish your actual stitching you need to do one and a half back stitches and so what this is is literally we're going to go one whole stitch back and then with our right hand needle we're going to go back through just with that one so for the half and what this does it just locks the stitches in place and also make sure that both threads are on the backside of what we are stitching and so once you've done that you can then trim the threads off and if you're going to start a new bit of stitching you would start with one back stitch and carry on or if that was the end of your stitching then you would go on to do your finishing touches so that's it for this video thank you very much for watching if you liked the video please click thumbs up button and subscribe for more videos and tutorials also make sure you hit the bell button to get notified every time I post a new video and I'll see you in the next episode

Channel: J.H.Leather

Views: 910,713

Rating: 4.9328918 out of 5

Keywords: leatherwork, leathercraft, jhleather, saddle stitch, saddlery, UK Saddlery, Master Saddlers, Master Craftswomen, Tutorial, Double hand stitching, learning, skills, DIY, beginner, basic, beginner leatherwork, basic skills, basic leathercraft, Craftswoman, stitching, leather stitching

Id: MFDo-dtr9mk

Length: 10min 55sec (655 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 19 2019