Last week the Fabric Store was having a leather sale… I had had my eye on a few pieces but given the fact that I don’t have a walking foot or heavy duty machine I thought I wouldn’t be able to sew it, and resisted the temptation.
But I couldn’t handle the allure of a sale! I got an amazing piece of bright orange leather and a smaller piece of brown leather at very discounted prices. So, I decided I needed to sort out my leather sewing situation.
I thought I would try putting it through my Necchi Lydia 3 machine that I got for $20 at a garage sale, which seems fairly heavy duty.
Surprisingly, the Necchi sewed through two layers of quite thick leather!
I am so pleased with the results!
My first try turned into an awesome pouch that is exactly the size of my iPad mini, which I put a magnetic snap closure on, and covered it with a bit of wax print fabric.
The leather for the pouch I got from the leather working class I did with the community education centre a few months ago. When I cut it out I had no particular use in mind, amazingly it is exactly the size of my iPad mini!
Confidence boosted by the initial success with the Necchi, I thought I would try a more challenging project – a lined laptop sleeve. I had a piece of fabulous gold leather I got at Made on Marion from the scraps bin a few months ago that was somewhat big but a bit irregularly shaped.
I traced the size of my laptop onto it and cut it into a large rectangle, which I folded in half then sewed the sides up. The Necchi handled it, barley skipping a stitch!
I cut out some lining also from a wax print and attached it by sewing around the top edge with the right sides of the leather and lining together. Then I pulled the whole bag through a hole in the lining and tucked it inside then closed the hole. I was really nervous the machine would go all wrong but surprisingly I had no trouble.
I’m seriously proud of my first attempts and sewing leather, they look professional.
I also made some very hot sauce today, like 4 litres of it, which I bottled. I have no idea what to do with all this hot sauce!
I used the last kg or 2 of jalapeños I picked at Penray farm the week before last, and some onion, carrot, and a tin of tomatoes, along with some vinegar, the zest & juice of 1 orange, mustard seeds, ground cloves, and some sugar.
It’s got a nice Caribbean flavour but is really really hot so I have no idea how I will use all of it.
quaking blog 