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I am new to working with leather. I have made many handbags but have only just started using leather and vinyl. I bought an industrial walking foot machine as I will be making a lot in the near future for a company. But I’m having issues with getting close to zipper teeth. I tried to take off a part of the foot but the machine didn’t like that!! Does anyone have any tips for me please? Need to get quite close.

Hi, I am trying to make a zip around wallet. I have figured out putting in the zip using a wooden mold, but I don't know how to do the edge stitching around the zip, so that I catch in both the outer leather case and the internal pieces and get it to look neat. In the photos you can see I have done the white stitching on the blue outer case (this is a practice piece) but I can't get the stitches to catch the inside pieces. Grateful for any ideas.

Hello everyone. I hope you're doing well. I'm hoping for some advice in solving my zip installation problems as shown below. This is the first zip I've fitted, and although it turned out ok, it's just ok, and needs to be better. In brief, and for some background, the case you see below was hand stitched with a 2oz leather exterior, a stiffener board, and then a veg tan lining of approx 3oz. I'm wondering if anyone has any advice as to how best to fit a zipper that wraps around the sides of a product, specifically where the zipper and product meet at 90 degrees. More specifically, I'm looking for advice as to how to tackle corners in this situation. I realise in my model that I've attached the zip to close to the edge of the product at the corners, which explains why the gap between the front and back cover are not even all the way around. This I can solve in version two. What I'm not sure about is how to avoid those puckers / pleats at the corners. When I examine commercially available products like this, I notice that there do not seem to be any pleats at the corners, and the zipper fits (in many cases) perfectly. Secondly, when making something like this, how do you all ensure that the outer and inner components align perfectly, so that your stitches are equidistant from the edges? In my case, I pre-marked my stitches, punch a few using my awl, and used a handful of needles to align the components. This was semi-successful. Does anyone have a better solution? I've often been able to solve problems like this by finding a YouTube video or two showing a professional making something similar. This time however I'm stuck for resources. Help! Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer some suggestions. Nick www.madebynick.co.uk