Day 1 of The 24 Days of Bag Making 2025

If you are new to faux leather here’s some tips and key points to consider when working with it: 

1. Never use a leather needle with faux leather! A microtex needle or super universal needle is your friend. Leather needles puncture the fabric and you don’t want to perforate it (leading to a weaker seam and tearing over time). A size 80 or 90 is a good needle size to use.
2. Depending on your sewing machine, you may need to consider how many layers you put into a design… you may find it better to use faux leather alongside a thinner fabric to have less bulk in seams. Faux leather can look amazing together with a waterproof canvas or quilting cotton.
3. Once you pierce faux leather with a needle the hole is permanent. So if you need to unpick this can be really frustrating. You can however use a hair dryer to heat up the fabric a little and it will often seal up the holes a little and look less obvious. 
4. Faux leather has a give and sometimes a stretch. Interfacing isnt always necessary due to the weight of the fabric and it not needing any ‘stiffness’, however adding interfacing can stop the give or stretch making it easier to sew and also make it easier to attach any stabiliser you might be adding to the construction.
5. It’s best to avoid using your best fabric scissors on faux leather as it’s not fabric per-se – rather it’s a composition of plastic. Cutting faux leather with your best fabric scissors will dull them so save them for regular fabric.
6. A teflon foot or walking foot is best for faux leather – it will help the fabric to glide through the machine.
7. Use a hump jumper for any bulky seams. Layers can get thick quickly when using faux leather so do use a hump jumper to help you over the thicker areas.
8. Oh no you skipped a stitch? Don’t worry – there’s an easy way to fix it – check out this reel I made on fixing skipped stitches easily.
9. Clips rather than pins are your friend for faux leather. Pins puncture the fabric and just like when sewing, these holes are tricky to get rid of. So clips all the way!
10. Lengthen your stitch length for faux leather – it can really help with the finished look of the bag and also help to avoid perforating and therefore weakening the seam.
11. You can not press or iron faux leather from the front side and this beautiful faux leather is no exception. Only use an iron on the back and always with a teflon sheet or baking paper to protect the iron and fabric.
12. Finally, don’t be afraid of faux leather! It’s not as scary as it may seem. It can make really beautiful bags and even simple projects can be levelled up with this beautiful material. 

Let me know what you think of this fabric in the comments below and ask questions if you have any or add more tips and tricks if you know some!

Do pop back to this blog for the rest of the days or read along to the next blog post for what day 2 brings!

Missed out on this advent box? You can find any possible extra stock here.