Sewing on Suede.

[Doomkrieg]

I'm aware this might be a dumb question, but I was wondering if I need a leather needle to sew on my riding patches to my flight suit. If I do is there a certain kind I would need?

[Smiling Fox]

I sewed mine on with a heavy duty sewing needle. I have a standard late 60's model sewing machine. No problems at all.

[Skinner3D]

The wife just did it with a regular needle although we did use faux suede. If you are using real suede then you will need a heavier duty needle, both for machine and hand sewing. I don't think you need a leather needle per se. Its more time consuming to do it by hand, but easier to sew whilst keeping the seams intact.

[Bobik96]

I asked a lady at the sewing machine repair shop about suede and vinyl. She recommended a denim needle. It has a blue line around the top.

[scout.trooper]

I bought a small set of leather needles for hand sewing... haven't had a chance to use them yet. My sewing machine did the butt flap with faux suede just fine with a regular needle, just used heavier thread. I think the only difference is that leather needles have a triangle-like pointed tip.

[4505Marcel]

I use the thicker standard needles also, the suede we use is thin any way, it's not like we're stitching anything thick to require a leather needle

[Chef]

Apparently, according to my Sewing Machine engineer.

 

When using suede or leather you do need to use a 'leather' needle because the shape of the tip is different. Because leather (skin basically) doesn't have warp and weft threads for the thread to grab round the shape of a standard needle can sometimes cause the bobbin thread to get stuck and miss stitch.

 

I have loads of trouble with this on my machine and a leather needle sorted it right out.

 

So if you use a standard needle and you keep getting missed or dropped stitches, then try a new leather needle first.

[M.J]

Chef is correct, there are needles used for Leather I worked with leather on Boushh.

 

Please note with leather once a whole is made it will be quite noticeable compared to fabric.

 

And no need to hand sew, iron the sides in if fabric pin then use sewing machine and if leather just sew it on, it will look neater and take less than half the time now in saying that one hopes you have a sewing machine. Otherwise refer back to stage one!

[sleeverob]

I used a leather needle to sew mine on as well.

[BikerScout007]

I used a heavy duty needle, but the pigskin suede that you get from Tandy leather is very thin.

[Chunk]

You can use a HD needle made for cavas. Nothing special, they come in packs of 10 for under $2. Just go slow. Dependeds on ur guage of suede though. The thinner the better. 2-3 guage is best. With the 3 i tend to break 1-2 needes, but can get the job done with a cheap sewing maching from Walmart.