Leather Sewing Machines: Can I use an ordinary sewing machine to sew leather?
Just like commercial sewing machines, leather sewing machines are designed for a long, hard life. You want to drastically shorten the life of your precious regular sewing machine? Be my guest. Sew a load of leather on it. Knock yourself out. Your machine will be dead as a dodo in no time. But seriously, none of us wants that. So I don’t recommend using a normal domestic sewing machine for sewing anything more than a small quantity of leather. I’m not saying you can’t do the odd bit of light leather work on a decent heavy-duty sewing machine. Some of the top sewing machines for home use can cope with it. But I would never try to sew anything more than 5oz leather – nothing tougher than lightweight skins or suede – and never through more than two layers. For leather work, a sewing machine needs to do a long stitch. The short stitches that many machines lay down will not work. You will get a neat perforated strip all through the leather that will tear it apart. You also need specialist le
