My first leather hinge attempt took 6 hours longer than planned

I tried to hand-sew a leather hinge on a small journal last weekend and spent 8 hours getting the thread tension right across three different thicknesses of leather. What I thought would be a 2 hour job turned into a full day project because the stitching kept pulling uneven on the spine. Has anyone else had a simple binding step take way more time than they expected?

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2 Comments

lunawilson1mo ago

Did you try using a stitching pony or just clamp it between your knees? I had a similar disaster with a leather journal where my cat jumped on the worktable right as I was pulling the thread tight, totally scrambled my tension rhythm.

1

wade4381mo ago

Wedge it between your knees if you've got good thigh grip, but a stitching pony saves your back after the first hour. Also learned the hard way to banish pets during sewing sessions. My dog sneezed right as I was tensioning a longstitch binding, threw the whole thing off by a thread or two.

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