Here is the quick review of the best needles for hand sewing and sewing machines to sew leather goods.If you got used to working with leather manually, in an old-school way, by making stitches with needles, then you need many proper needles to finish the work and receive a high-quality leather item.
The characteristics of leather needles may vary depending on the intended use. The most common distinguishing features are the size, shape and eye type. There are 3 types of leather needles that you may buy online all over the United States:
- straight: with/without an eye, with/without a hook;
- double (two rods, as it has two rods and can do two symmetrical stitches at the same time);
- curved tools with/without an eye or with a hook;
Leather needles differ not only by their shape and size but also by its marking/encoding. Such a marking consists of one or more Latin letters is assigned to a certain type of needle in the set. The number indicates the thickness and dimensions of a tool. Usually, it consists of two or three digits.
You can read the number of the needle in such a way: if you divide this number by 100, you get a value equal to the diameter of a needle in millimeters. The thickest leather needles are used for multi-layered items and they will also do for crafting any goods of coat cloth, thick denim, and fur with long pile.
Picking a leather needle for soft materials
Keep in mind that handbags, wallets, and backpacks are made from harder leather. If a soft leather type is used, a lining is made underneath. These nuances also affect the choice of needles. When working with soft leather types, a normal needle is selected to fit any household sewing machine or will do for manual crafting. Decorative stitching is performed with a tool marked from 80 or 90.
Advice on leather needles by Leather-Toolkits
According to all these features, I can recommend buying such leather needles:
- Colonial set of 3 needles offers the finest quality with the size 3/7;
- Outus 20-tool set includes the sturdy large-eye needles of 5.2 cm;
- Shappy tools are very lightweight and they are made of stainless steel;
In addition to the text, I’ve uploaded the video with a quick review of the best leather needles to sew hand-crafted goods. If you like this website, make sure to subscribe!
When sewing with leather, you need to use specific needles or else it will be hard to pierce through the leather strands. Otherwise, another way you could go about doing this is by creating a little hole with a knife and then pushing the thread through it.
Hi, Matthew! Thanks for your comment.
Purchasing leather needles can be tricky if you’re new to leatherworking. You definitely cannot skimp on quality. I’ve made that mistake before and it resulted in many broken needles – not fun!