A worn leather strap with an enlarged stitch hole and the old thread picked back, beside a seam ripper, awl, needles and pliers.
| |

Repairing an Enlarged Stitch Hole

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis

One hole goes soft. Then it takes the next one with it.

An enlarged stitch hole is a puncture in the leather that has grown bigger than the thread running through it, stretched by strain, torn by a dry hide or chewed open by a tool held at an angle, and once the thread starts sliding around inside it, the seam has a loose tooth that wiggles every time the bag is picked up. It never fixes itself. A hand saddle stitch locks each stitch, so a seam can carry on for a while with one bad hole, but the thread rubbing in that hole wears, and the leather around it keeps giving. The repair is not hard. It has to be done in the right order, though, or you spend an afternoon making one bad hole into three.

Video: Hand Stitching: Restitching a Back Seam in Leather Boots, from Shane Barr on YouTube.

That’s shoe repairer Shane Barr restitching a boot seam by hand, which is most of this job. My bias, up front: I stitch everything by hand for a living, and on The Art of Hand Stitching I admit hand-punched holes run slightly bigger than a machine’s to begin with. So I’ve spent a lot of time looking at holes. The repair steps below come from repairers and saddlers on the leatherworker.net forum and from a conservation note, and where it’s my judgment, it says so.

First, find out why the hole grew

The hole is the symptom. Fix the cause or you’ll be back.

Hands restitching an aged chestnut leather seam through existing holes with two needles.

Before any thread comes out, look hard at the hole and at its neighbours. There are a few usual suspects, and each one changes the repair.

Strain at one point is the most common. In a thread on tack repair questions, the member Handstitched says the leather often breaks right where the buckle heel and pin sit. Handles, strap anchors and the corners of a flap get the same treatment. If the stretched hole sits at the spot that takes the pull, the repair needs reinforcement, not just thread.

Dry leather is the second. In a thread on issues with stitch holes, a maker’s wallet tore out at the holes, and TinkerTailor and Boriqua both put it down to dry, unoiled leather; Boriqua says a light coat of neatsfoot oil overnight cured the same blowouts on dry hides. Leather that cracks when you bend it at the seam has to be fed before you stitch into it again. The post on conditioning myths covers what to put on it and what not to.

The third is a mismatch from the start. In a thread on thread size, YinTx describes thread in a round punched hole “wallowing around in a cavernous gap.” Thread that loose rubs on every flex. On the thread about how large holes should be, TwinOaks makes the case for tight holes: they leave little room for oil, dirt, wax and water, which break thread down.

Run a fingernail along the seam. Count the bad holes. One soft hole is a repair. A row of them is a restitch.

Pull the thread back past the damage

Open more of the seam than looks necessary.

The instinct is to cut out one stitch and patch the one hole. Don’t. New thread needs sound stitching on both sides to lock into.

Maze Leather’s guide to repairing a broken seam pops out the loose thread with a seam ripper or hook needle and leaves about 1.5 to 2 inches of thread on each side to anchor the repair. On the forum, fredk gives two versions of the same idea. In a thread on a partial repair, he starts the new stitching about four stitches into the old and ends about four stitches past it, so the two overlap. In another, on fixing a bad section, he cuts the thread back about two inches on each side and overlaps new onto old by about an inch.

Cut the old thread carefully. A seam ripper slipping sideways out of a stitch hole is how a repair makes a fresh tear. Pick the thread out from the inside where you can, so any slip lands on the side nobody sees.

Check the stitching you’re keeping. Fredk’s advice on the partial-repair thread is to look the rest over for wear, and to double up with new stitching anywhere the old looks weak. The point of the repair is that this seam doesn’t come back.

Close, plug or back the hole

Three fixes, for three sizes of damage.

Macro view of an enlarged, oval stitch hole with loose thread beside tight stitch holes in tan leather.

Here’s where the work splits. How far the hole has gone decides which fix fits.

Stretched, not torn. The leatherworker.net thread on healing a needle hole has the gentle remedies. Fredk burnishes the leather around a stray hole with a modelling tool and drops in a little water to help it close. My opinion: on a hole that has only stretched, not torn, closing it up that way and going up one thread size can be enough. Confirm the new thread pulls through with real drag, not slack.

Wide enough to need filling. In the same thread, toxo sands scrap leather of the same type, collects the dust and fills the hole with it in dry clear glue. Rktaylor plugs a hole with a strip of leather cut by a stitch groover, pulled through and trimmed flush, and says it blended well on a saddle skirt. Let the fill set hard, then pierce it fresh with the smallest awl that will pass your needle. In a thread on an ankle protector repair, cardinal leather describes chasing old holes with the smallest round awl before restitching, and that’s the right tool here.

Torn into its neighbour. Plugging won’t hold this one. In a thread on ripped lacing holes, two holes in a wallet fold had torn into one. Fredk had the maker cut the lining stitch, slide a leather patch behind the damage spanning several holes either side, and re-sew. The maker thinned a 2-ounce piece so the fold stayed flat. My opinion: when two holes have become one, the leather there has nothing left to grip with, and the patch behind it is doing the holding, not the face.

If layers have come apart, glue them back without stretching. Fivewayswelshcobs, on the ankle-protector thread, glues only where the layers have fully separated.

Restitch through the old holes

Same holes, same thread, a little overlap.

Now sew. Use the old holes wherever they’re sound. The Canadian Conservation Institute’s note on stitches used in textile conservation advises stitching through existing holes whenever possible and using as few stitches as possible. That’s textile guidance, but leather repairers say the same. Mulesaw and fivewayswelshcobs, on the tack-repair thread, both hand stitch using the existing holes.

Match what’s there. Fredk’s line on the partial repair is to match the colour and size of the original thread. Tandy’s guide to thread weight and chisel size ties the hole and its spacing to the thread chosen, so a repair thread that is much finer than the original will sit loose in holes cut for something heavier.

Line the layers up before the first needle goes in. Dirtclod, on the ankle-protector thread, pins the layers with needles, tacks or toothpicks to keep the holes in line, and Wild Bill46 calls that pinning essential. On thick work I punch and line up every hole before stitching, because thick bridle won’t stitch any other way, and a repair is no different.

Saddle stitch it with two needles, the way the seam was made. The earlier post on why a broken stitch doesn’t sink a saddle-stitched seam explains why that matters: each stitch locks on its own. On very thick leather, wax the needles and pull with pliers. I do. In Maze Leather’s guide, needle-nose pliers help when the needle is hard to draw through.

Feel each pull. That’s the skill. A strand that pops inside the layers doesn’t show on the outside, and you only know it happened because the tension in your hand changed.

Finish the repair so it disappears

Backstitch, lock it, and stop looking at it.

A repaired leather seam where new hand stitching overlaps the original stitching on an old brown bag.

End the new stitching in the overlap, a few stitches into sound old stitching, then lock it. The post on backstitching and burning thread ends covers how. Maze Leather ties two knots and pulls the knot into the seam before trimming.

Then the face. Jcuk, on the needle-hole thread, rubs beeswax over the area to make leftover marks less obvious. Condition the leather around the repair the same way as the rest of the piece, so the patched section doesn’t look drier than its neighbours. Then give it time. My opinion: a good repair should darken along with the rest of the bag, which is what patina is supposed to do.

When the repair isn’t worth it

Sometimes the honest fix is new leather.

Here’s my case for all of the above. A good stitch hole is worth saving. The leather around it took the shape of the seam over years, and new leather in its place will look new for a long time.

Now the harder part. Mulesaw, on the tack-repair thread, compares the cost of a repair with the price of a new girth, so a customer isn’t paying near the cost of new for an old part. Handstitched remakes pieces that are badly damaged or rotten. If the leather cracks when you bend it, if a row of holes has torn along the line, a plug and a patch are a bandage on a dead limb.

I also know my own weakness here. An imperfection a customer wouldn’t notice for years still bothers me, because my name is on the work. On my Maker page I wrote that the side nobody sees is where a weak stitch gets found out. A repair is a weak spot by definition. My opinion: if the damage sits on a strap anchor or a handle, replace the part. If it sits in a quiet seam, repair it and let it age with the rest.

Know which one you’re holding.

John James Saddlers Harness Blunt Point Needles: A set of blunt-point harness needles, five sizes with five needles of each. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Mandala Crafts 150D 0.8mm Black Flat Waxed Thread: A flat waxed polyester thread, 0.8 mm, in black, for hand sewing leather. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

General Tools Scratch Awl with Hardwood Handle: A scratch awl with a hardwood handle. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

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

Leather Skiving Knife Set, 2 Pieces: A two-piece metal skiving knife set for thinning leather edges. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Leather Conditioner with Grass-Fed Beef Tallow and Lanolin: A leather conditioner made with grass-fed beef tallow and lanolin. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Pure Neatsfoot Oil, 8 oz: An 8 oz bottle of pure neatsfoot oil for leather. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Beesworks Yellow Beeswax Bars, 6 oz: Yellow beeswax bars, 6 oz, for waxing thread. 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.

Sources

You Might Also Like

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply