You would normally pierce your stitches with the leather held between the jaws of the clam, but another way to do this is with a thick cork block under the leather and you’ll find this very useful when you are working with thicker leather.

To practice piercing ‘on the block’, you will need a cork block with a depth greater than the length of your harness awl blade. You will also need a piece of leather which has been prepared for stitching…

It seems everyone has their preferred choice of threads for hand stitching leatherwork projects, so here are some of the choices available….

Traditional linen thread: A small colour range is available from Somac and in our opinion their thread is very strong. It comes waxed and the best choice of colours comes with the 18/3 cord. Usually available on small 50g spools. Coats Barbour produce the waxed machine linen thread too although this is also perfectly suitable for hand stitching. As with Somac, the 18/4, 18/5 and 18/6 cord tend to come in a limited range of three or four colours – usually black, brown and white…

Leatherwork supplies – When you first start out in leatherwork knowing where to source leather and tools can be a little daunting.

Vegetable tanned leather:

You won’t go far wrong if your first stop for buying veg tan leather is one of the suppliers listed in our magazine, Waxing the Thread.  You will also find just about anything and everything in the way of leather-working tools and fittings too.

If you’re not sure which parts of the hide to purchase for your projects, read on…

All parts of the hide can be used for something so it’s really not a case of one part being better than another – each part of the hide is best suited to specific projects.

The Shoulder: perfect for handbags, straps and handles. This part of the hide as a less dense fibre structure than butt although quite flexible, so lends itself well to many projects.  Usually quite easy to work with…

Obvious, but often not done properly, or regularly enough. Sharpening or stropping tools (polishing, or sometimes referred to as honing) regularly is crucial for safety and also for providing a good end result.

Knives should always be kept sharp as cuts from these can be very damaging if the blade is blunt. You’re also more likely to have an accident if exerting excessive pressure while attempting to cut leather with a blunt blade…