Hey guys,
I have been lurking on here reading many of your posts for a long time and I appreciate all of the help and guidance this website has provided me.
I'm also sorry in advance that this post seems like a miniature life-story about how I stumbled into the world of leather craft.
Sewing is a skill I didn't think I'd ever be able to attain. I can be sort of a bull-in the China shop type guy sometimes, and I didn't think I would ever have the patience and dexterity for all of this.... I'm a very mechanical guy and it dawned on me one day that I've only ever worked with hard materials, so I figured that I needed to learn how to 'build' things using soft materials. So I went out and shelled out all 800 of my remaining dollars on a industrial sewing machine. Why? I really don't know... I just wanted a machine like that as a resource in my workshop one day.
When the machine was sold to me, I didn't have any intention at all to make leather products. I actually didn't know how to sew at all prior to purchasing this machine. The man who sold me the machine kept listing leather as a selling point, but I honestly wasn't planning on sewing any leather with it......
.....It was soon after I randomly purchased this industrial sewing machine that the world of leathers opened to me.
Keep hanging in there with me... I'm getting to the ultimate question.......
I'm currently going to school to be a product designer, and I recently noticed after our last project the kids who built their furniture pieces using CNC machinery ended up having very cold/sterile 'almost too perfect' pieces. The people who built their furniture pieces using traditional hand-tool methods ended up with warmer pieces that possessed the human element, the 'character' so to speak. I think this is analogous to the hand-stitching vs machine stitching debate. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages.....Both have a time and a place that's best fit to the situation of whatever it is you're sewing.
I understand that there's advantages to using a hand saddle stitch, namely the strength and the "handmade" aesthetic/ that comes through in the final product, in addition if one stitch breaks it is less likely to unravel the whole line of stitching.
Obviously using a sewing machine to sew things affords one tremendous convenience like copious time saving, precision stitching, identical tension on every stitch etc....
Is there anybody out there who uses both machine sewing and hand sewing in one product?
I really like the look of hand-sewing, I like the mental stimulation of knowing that using a combination of glue, rivets and stitching it's built like a brick-shit house. I also like the convenience and effortless precision of using my sewing machine......
Have any of you utilized both hand-sewing and machine sewing in one product? Are the two aesthetics compatible?
Thanks again for reading, what may have seemed like my entire life story. And thanks again to the people who contribute all of their experiences and knowledge to the site.
