this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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leathercraft
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A bit late to the party and maybe you've already come across this in your search. But i figured just to add to the conversation, here's an article about how to sew a dart (more in the non leather sense. Apparently there's some a real skill to it, but I'm sure with some practice, you can nail it.
You won't be able to do any of this in leather--except for the very lightest weight leathers for fashion garments--due to the thickness of the material. The darts shown in the image appear to be cut, and sewn to a piece that is behind them. You wouldn't do that in fabric because you'd have raw edges of fabric showing, and it would ravel. That's not an issue with leather.
Leather apparel doesn't typically use darts; it's more common to see the shaping built into the pattern pieces.
Yeah I find it hard to translate from fabric sewing to leather. It’s a different craft really unless you work with very soft and thin leather maybe.
I have seen pics or a video a while ago of corners done on leather that I have posted about. I just can’t find them anymore. I really have two questions: 1) do I just cut a slit or do I have to remove a “slice” there 2) how deep do I cut.
I think I’ll have to play around with some scraps to figure out the right approach. The ones I saw had the cut stitched back together, turned and then the edge of the whole side was sewn to a strip of leather. Then the leather strip was sewn to the gusset (side and bottom of bag).
You'll have to remove a slice; if you just cut a slit, you'll have to overlap them, and you won't have enough seam allowance to connect them once you start getting to the point of the slit. If you cut a piece out, and have a backing piece of leather, you'll be able to sew all the way around.
This kind of stitching would be easiest on a post-bed roller foot machine. It's going to be a real challenge with a flat bad machine. Otherwise, I'd use contact cement to hold the backer on temporarily (or even just rubber cement), and then stitch by hand.
I only hand sew