Today I finished my first pair of leather shoes for the little guy. He loves baseball, basketball, football, beach balls and practically anything that resembles a ball. I had some plain white leather that I stitched onto the red speckled leather to decorate the shoes with baseballs. I used a heavy duty thread and leather machine sewing needles. I ended up breaking all three needles in the pack and hand stitched the last pieces together. I actually found that it was much easier to hand stitch the leather than to sew it on the machine. (I had special leather needles for hand sewing too.) I added 1/4 inch to the design I used for the toddler slippers. I haven't had a chance to try them on the little guy yet - he is napping now. One tip I would like to share - when machine sewing leather, hand crank the wheel to go in reverse when starting out and also hand crank if you have areas that you are going through more than 2 layers. I would like to experiment with different threads and the leather to see what combination I prefer. I know that the heavy duty thread will hold well, but it was not the easiest to work with due to its thickness.I love the piece of speckled red leather I found at Martin's House of Cloth. I also found several other great pieces - silver, peachy pink and a white splattered with blue and yellow. I am excited to try new projects with this new material. I'll post my latest creations here for you to check out!
