I’ve had this idea from //Between the Lines// pinned for years, probably since I first signed up on Pinterest. I’ve pinned quite a few of her tutorials, I love her elegant simplicity. I chose this project today because I wanted to do something quick and easy. And useful!
Well, what looks quick and simple on a quick read through doesn’t always turn out to be that way! I don’t have a step-by-step for you this month, but I do have a bunch of tips and tricks to share.
First, after you print out the free template, double check the measurements. Even though I printed mine at the exact size, it was much bigger than the dimensions noted. On my second try I printed at 90%, which turned out to be still a bit too big, but I decided to press on.
I used my trusty Crop-a-Dile for punching holes in the leather and setting the eyelet. This is one tool I don’t regret buying back in my tool junkie days!
The trouble began when I started to stitch the two pieces together. I didn’t have any hemming tape, as suggested for keeping the pieces together, so I decided to just go very slowly as I stitched. I made sure to use a very loose tension in my thread. However, because of the thickness of the layers, the leather was sluggish moving through the machine, and I ended up with this wonky mess.
Back to the drawing board! I had the great idea to lower the feed dogs – those serrated things that slightly grip the fabric to help pull it through. Unfortunately. while my former no-name sewing machine had an option to do this, my newer Pfaff (admittedly a low entry model) doesn’t! I decided to just try again, and stitch very very carefully. The end result was better, just good enough to share with you!
It was a bit of a struggle getting the leather cord threaded too as well, but I finally sussed it. I’m glad I did too, because I do love this idea a lot!
I decided to take a stab to see if I could use hand stitching to make them. It’s still in progress…
I’ll update once I’m done! If this works out I think they will make great little stocking stuffers!
I don’t know if I could work with leather. It seems like it would be really hard. Cool idea though.
Yep, leather is finicky, it takes a lot of patience. I think I should have used linger stitches.
these look so cool.. maybe I will ask my daughter to use some thick felt she has to sew some of these for us 🙂
That’s a great idea!