A vegetable-tanned leather case with a whipstitch leather edge in brown lace on a workbench.
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Lacing a Leather Edge With a Whipstitch

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis

One strand of lace, one row of slits, and the edge wrapped tight from end to end.

A whipstitch is lace wrapped over the edge of leather, through one hole, over the top, into the next hole, and again, until the edge wears a spiral of leather like a wire wound around a hose. It is the oldest fastening in the book after a knot. It is also not my stitch. I saddle-stitch with two needles and waxed thread, and I will tell you where that bias shows. But the whipstitch has its own job, and when it is done right the edge stops looking like a cut and starts looking like a hem.

Video: Leather lacing How to do the Whip Stitch, from Richard Black on YouTube.

That video is from Richard Black’s channel, and it shows the plain whip from the first hole on. What follows is the same work broken into the order it happens, from picking the lace to burying the last end, with the sources named at each step.

Pick the lace before you touch the leather

The lace sets the size of every hole you will punch.

Hands pulling leather lace through a slit to whipstitch a leather edge.

Everything downstream depends on the strand. The Pathfinders leathercraft answer key gives the whole stitch in two lines: the lace always comes up from the bottom to the top, and it wraps around the edge to get back underneath. So the lace is going to pass through every slit, and it is going to be seen across every edge. Thin lace in fat slits wobbles. Fat lace in thin slits chews the hole open.

Common widths are 3/32 inch and 1/8 inch. Tandy’s Craftool lacing chisel is sold for 3/32 inch lace, and the listing puts it at 5 laces per inch, in one, four and eight prong versions. A Leatherworker.net member, blue duck, puts the rule plainly in a thread on what tools you need for lacing: find the lace you can actually get first, then buy the punch that matches it.

Leather Circle, an Australian supplier, lists cowhide, kangaroo, deerskin, latigo and suede laces in its lacing guide, calls kangaroo extremely strong, and says most lacing work best on leather around 1 to 2 mm thick. That is light leather. Keep it in mind for later.

Now length, and here the sources fight. The International Leather Club gives a general rule of 1.5 to 2 times the edge. AWLTOOL’s lacing guide says to cut 3.5 times the edge for a whipstitch and pre-stretch it. The old e-scoutcraft lacing page gives 3.5 times for a looped edge stitch and 6 times for a cross whip. That is a big spread for one strand of leather.

Somebody on Leatherworker.net settled it the honest way. In a thread on edge lacing, LatigoAmigo says too many things change the answer, from lace thickness to hole spacing to how far the holes sit from the edge, and that your best bet is to cut a length and see how far it goes. My opinion: do that on scrap, write the number on the bench, and stop arguing with the internet.

Mark the line and punch the slits

Even spacing is the whole look. Nobody forgives a wandering row.

Mark first. In the same tools thread, Rockoboy uses wing dividers to scribe the hole line, which keeps it a fixed distance from the edge all the way around, curves included. The e-scoutcraft page puts that distance at 1/16 to 1/8 inch and says the holes should be evenly spaced. AWLTOOL says about 1/8 inch from the edge for most work, closer to 1/16 on a wallet.

Then the chisel. The e-scoutcraft page calls a thonging chisel a thing that looks like a fork, driven with a mallet over a block of hardwood, and it says to start at the corner. My advice, not the page’s: after the first strike, drop the first prong back into the last slit you cut before you hit again. That overlap is what keeps the spacing honest. A multi-prong chisel walks a straight edge fast. Around a curve it fights you, which is why blue duck in that thread keeps a two-prong for curves and a round punch for corners.

Slit shape is its own argument. JLSleather, in a thread on which type of hole to use for lacing, likes angled slits, not punched holes, on small goods, and punches a small round hole at a bulky corner so the lace can lie flat. On thin snakeskin he switches to small round holes because slits can tear it. blue duck prefers straight slots. Neither one is wrong. The leather decides.

If the edge is two layers, my opinion is to glue them first and punch through both at once, so the slits line up. Then finish that edge before you lace it, because once the lace is on, you will never get a burnisher back in there.

Start the lace without a knot

A knot is a lump. The lock is hidden between the layers.

Macro of evenly spaced lacing slits punched along a leather edge with a chisel tip.

Load the needle. The International Leather Club describes the common two-prong lacing needle: open the prongs with a fingernail or a thin screwdriver, lay the lace in, let them close, and crimp with pliers if you want it to hold harder. Tandy’s Perma-Lok needle uses a threaded design instead, and the regular size takes 3/32 and 1/8 inch lace.

Then dampen the lace lightly. Tandy’s page on double loop lacing says a little moisture cuts down twisting and makes the lace more flexible, and the same goes for a plain whip.

The start is where beginners tie a knot. Don’t. The e-scoutcraft method runs half an inch to an inch of lace between the two layers, between the holes and the edge, then comes out the first hole so the following wraps trap that tail. AWLTOOL starts from inside the second hole, leaves a tail, and wraps over it. Either way the end gets buried under its own work, the way a roofer laps the next shingle over the nails of the last one.

Wrap, pull, check, repeat

The edge only looks even if every wrap gets the same pull.

Now the rhythm. Needle up through the slit from the back. Over the edge. Up through the next slit from the back again. Always the same side, every time. The e-scoutcraft page says it plainly enough: the lace goes through the holes from the same side and gets pulled tight after every stitch.

Tight, not strangled. In my view, pull too hard and the lace narrows and the edge rolls under it like a cuff pinched in a door. Pull too soft and the wraps sag and lift. AWLTOOL says to check the tension every five stitches and to straighten any twist as you go, and to soak a stubborn one. Tandy’s double loop page gives the same plain advice: keep the tension consistent and practice on scrap first.

Keep the lace flat. My rule of thumb is that one twist in a long run of wraps catches the eye from across a room, and once you see it you will keep seeing it.

This part I know from waxed thread, not from lace. Stitching, for me, is feeling the strand, knowing through the fingers when something has gone wrong inside the layers before the eye can see it. Lace asks for the same attention, only on the outside, where everyone can check your work.

Corners, joins and the last hole

Most lacing goes wrong at a corner or where one strand runs out.

A whipstitched leather corner with lace doubled through a round corner hole and no visible ends.

A square corner is the hard part. The lace has to turn ninety degrees and still cover the point. AWLTOOL’s guide says to go through the corner hole twice for a whipstitch, opening it with an awl if it is tight. That is why JLSleather and blue duck both reach for a round punch at a corner: a slit cannot take two or three passes of lace without splitting, and a round hole can. In my opinion the corner is where most lacing goes wrong, and it is worth punching a test corner on scrap before the real piece.

Joins come next, because no lace runs forever. Stetson912, in that edge lacing thread, says to learn to splice instead of dragging 50 feet of lace through 100 holes. The International Leather Club lists the options by weight: thin lace can be tied, heavier lace hand-stitched, and the heaviest joined with wire or a staple. Tandy’s lacing tips and hints video covers a cement splice, though the page itself does not spell out the method. Whatever the join, hide it between the layers, the same way you buried the start.

The finish mirrors the start. The e-scoutcraft page runs the needle back between the two layers and through the loops for half an inch to an inch, pulls it out, pulls tight, and cuts. AWLTOOL backstitches three or four times and trims flush. Either way the last end goes under its own wraps. A finished whipstitch should show no beginning and no end, just a wrap going around and around like a coil spring.

Where the whipstitch loses to a saddle stitch

My case against lace on a briefcase, then the edge where lace wins.

I hand saddle-stitch everything. I owned the machines and gave them up. On my Maker page I say the saddle stitch is the one that holds tack together under a horse, and the hand stitching page makes the point that a hand saddle stitch is a stronger bond than a small machine stitch. The site has already laid out why a broken saddle stitch does not sink the seam: two needles, one thread, each stitch locked.

A whipstitch has no lock. One strand runs the whole edge, and in my view a cut at one wrap lets the next ones loosen. Pack the wraps too close and you cut the edge to pieces. In a thread on a lacing problem, Michael Sheldon warns that a whip stitch that close is “seriously weakening the edge of the leather.” And the Leather Circle guide puts most lacing on leather of 1 to 2 mm. A briefcase body is far heavier than that, and the anatomy of a briefcase has panels and gussets that carry weight every day. My opinion: a whipstitch has no business holding a briefcase together.

Now the turn.

The International Leather Club calls the whipstitch strong and common, and says it protects the edge. That last part is true, and a saddle stitch cannot do it. A saddle stitch sits inside the edge. The edge itself stays bare, a cut face that has to be beveled, sanded and burnished to survive. A whip covers that face with leather. On a lined case I stitch the edges to hold the lining in, and the edge is still open to every door frame and car seat it meets. Wrap it, and the lace takes the hits instead.

So the saddle stitch holds the work together, and the lace guards the outside of it, and on a flap edge or a sheath or a small case of light leather that guard is worth more than the strength I keep bragging about. I still would not lace a briefcase. I would not swear I am right about that on every bag, either.

WUTA Wing Divider: An adjustable stainless steel wing divider for marking a stitch line. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

WUTA Rawhide Mallet: A rawhide-head mallet for striking chisels and punches. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Fiskars 18 x 24 Inch Self-Healing Cutting Mat: A self-healing cutting mat, 18 by 24 inches. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Barge All Purpose Cement, Quart: A quart of solvent-based contact cement. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

OWDEN 9 Pieces Leather Hollow Punch Set: A nine-piece hollow punch set for round holes. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

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