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In addition to mending and repairing leather and suede articles, there are frequent occasions when buttons and other types of trim need to be sewn back in place. This can be readily accomplished by using a special leather needle to hand sew the button or trim to the suede or leather.

Standard hand sewing needles used for sewing cloth usually will not pierce suede or leather skins. This is especially true of the heavier, tougher cowhide and pigskin suedes and leathers. It takes a leather craft or glovers sewing needle to pierce the skins used in most suede and leather.

These special sewing needles have three razor sharp edges on the point. The three sharp edges actually slit the skin by cutting it in three places as the needle is pushed through the skin. That is why it is so easy to hand sew suede and leather with the leather needle. These leather sewing needles come in three sizes and are available through leather craft stores.

It is often necessary to sew up hems and seams on suede and leather garments. It is possible to use a standard cloth sewing machine to do this, however, a leather needle must be used.

Leather sewing needles are available for most sewing machines at most sewing machine supply stores. To purchase the proper leather sewing machine needle, simply provide the brand name and model number of your sewing machine.

For example, if you tell the store attendant that you want “the leather sewing needle for the Singer Model #3115 Sewing Machine,” that will be enough information to get the right needle. With the right needle, you will be able to sew up seams and/or hems on most suedes and leathers. A regular sewing machine needle made to sew cloth items would not work and will likely bend or break if used to sew leather.

Sewing leather and suede can best be accomplished with a special leather sewing machine. Although expensive to purchase, the leather sewing machine will provide several capabilities that may not be available on a typical cloth sewing machine equipped with a leather needle. There are several brands of leather sewing machines on the market today. Most leather sewing machines have the following capabilities: they sew through the thickest of leathers; they can sew a saddle stitch; they have a walking foot; and they sew leather rapidly.

The walking foot feature is desirable when sewing soft smooth leathers because it will keep the foot from scuffing the leather surface as might be the case if the leather were sewn by a machine not equipped with a walking foot.

The saddle stitch feature permits the machine to sew saddle-stitched seams that have come loose. The saddle stitch is a wide stitch that most cloth sewing machines are not capable of making. If the machine does not have a saddle stitch feature, it can be used to repair a saddle stitch by slowly hand feeding the needle stitch by stitch into the existing needle holes. This procedure can get you by on an occasional repair job, but it won’t do in a high production environment, where the speed of the leather sewing machine is mandatory.