Embroidering on leather

[RevMoore]

Does anyone have any experience with using an embroidery machine on leather? If so, what machine(s) would you recommend? Does it work well? What thickness of leather will you machine go through? I was think it may be a nice way to make some leather products really stand out..

[fredk]

Not with a machine but by hand, my #3 son and his girl friend tried to do some embroidery on leather. Problem was that you tend to have a lot of holes close together and they act just like the perforations along the edge of a postage stamp and leather tears along those perforations

[chrisash]

I used to do commercial embroidery with Barudan, Brother and Toyota machines and they all could manage up to about 1mm plus a bit of soft leather. the skill is in the design to stagger the stitching holes far enough apart to not perforate the leather and at the same time not ruin the design and then use a very strong stabiliser on the back.

When i did it a good few years ago we never used the automatic stitching patterns but maybe now days with companies like Wilcom they might have a settings for using leather i just don't know 

[Klara]

What items were you thinking about embroidering? I don't have an answer for you, but a point to think about. 

I did some by hand on lamb nappa for a dog collar. The leather isn't resistant enough, but holds up reasonably well (there's safety belt material underneath for stability). But the stitches are frayed and don't look good any more. So now I only use decorative rivets.

I believe that embroidery thread will always be more delicate than leather, and as I would use leather for hard-wearing items, I've decided for myself that it's not a good combination. 

But it all depends on what you had in mind...

 

[fredk]

I've just remembered that some years ago - maybe 20 years ago now - I saw a pair of 12th century embroidered leather gloves. Usually embroidery uses fine silk thread but these gloves I suspect used wool thread, plus they had decorative overlays sewn on. The 'embroidery' was good looking but not as fine as one would expect to find on cloth. The gloves were fancy indeed and more surprising was that they were men's gloves

[RevMoore]

Thanks for all your thoughts. I was just spit-balling as I saw something in a game and was curious as to if it would be possible and if it would even be in the realm of financially plausible. Probably best if I stick with just improving my tooling general leatherworking skills before I try to add more to my already overflowing plate.

[melissalevii]

I think you should search for it online.