Handstitched

G'Day again, Thanks for the great advice. Theres a couple of things that you mentioned that made me think, the leather was slightly damp , as I did wet the gusset part to get it into shape for sewing ,plus I was pretty eager to make my first bag , and the other thing was that I could try to adjust the pressure ,as I think it maybe too great , however I might try to adjust the pressure on both feet as the marks are from the bed , as I was sewing with the foot on the inside of the 'lip' or 'edge' This has made me think again just while I'm here typing ,when I received the machine (in a wooden crate) there was a piece of sewn leather under the foot , it was 20mm thick , I suppose it was put there to demonstrate that it can sew the thickness as advertised as it is a 'saddle making machine', so no doubt the adjustments were for set for that thickness.So I'll go and try to adjust the feet. As for the tensions, I seem to have that just right, ...after much practice. I might try to find some demo dvds on sewing bags etc. Once again thank heaps.

G'Day from Western Australia. After a lot of saving and research on umpteen different machines , I have finally taken the plunge and bought myself an industrial machine.This machine is called a 'Q Stitch Colt' distributed from Queensland ,Australia, very much the same as a Juki 441 , or the 'Artisan 'machines etc.(its almost identical). It's been working great , however I am still learning how use it to it's full potential ,so I do have my "L" plates hanging around my neck , ....or so to speak. One question that I do have is, how do I avoid the marks left behind on the leather by the machines's foot and the bed. I was making a handbag on the weekend (my first one, as I normally use lace) , leaving a bit of a 'lip' or an 'edge' on the gusset to accomodate the width of the foot , the bag looked quite good for a first attempt at a 'machine made bag', but it did leave machine marks on the leather? Can this be avoided or is this just something I'll just have get used to using a machine ? At the moment , I'm using the standard walking foot and needles that came with the machine.The leather that I used was a 3.5-4.0 mm veg tan on the main body of the bag and 2.5-3.0 mm veg tan on the gusset. ( Sorry , I don't know the conversion into ounces). (What a great web site!!!)