Machine Stitching 7. Fix Errors in Stitches

One of the most stressful situations when working with a machine is that the knot lump is made because knitting of the upper thread and the lower thread is not good or stitches are skipped because the threads don’t fit well each other.
Then what should we do in this case?
1. Just untie the existing stitched thread, align the tension tightly and stitch it back into the hole.
2. If the tension is not adjusted at all with the method 1 or if you are worried to work with a hole already made, make a hole with machine and stitch with hand.
3. Just ignore one or two stitches in the middle.
Since the thread stitch is at regular intervals, it is easy to see if there is a problem. When your skill is improved and if you want to make more professionally, few errors in stitches will be seen as big.
But there are also errors in few stitches even for the products made by luxury Goods Company.
In this case, most of them use threads of a similar color to leather so that they can cover the errors.
On the other hand, H Company shows their skills by using ivory threads and stitching it in the colorful leather.
I also ignored few stitches when I started the leather craft. But I was nervous about it afterwards.
So, ignoring few errors in stitching can be decided according to the judgment of manufacturer.
Method 2 is to make hole with the machine and stitch with hand.
This method is not for fix, but some people do this deliberately.
The shape of hand griffing hole is different from the needle hole of machine in its direction and shape. If it is connected to stitching with the same line of machine, you can make a hole with machine and stitch with hand.
Or some people just want to have hole look like the one made by machine.
If you do this with hand, stitches can be uneven with the wrong griffing. But if you do this with machine, needle makes a hole in the leather vertically. So some people want to make a hole with machine instead of doing griff with hand.
It is a watchband made by hand stitching.
But the stitches made by hand look little bit different from the one made by machine. I think that the hole made by machine is well matched with stitching made by machine. So I don’t think I choose the method 2.
Then, the only way to do this is to fix the thread tension somehow like method 1 and work machine again in line with the hole already made.
Let’s just do it one by one.

You need to check the shape of stitches with the thread you will use in the sample leather before using machine.
It looks normal.

But actual stitches can be a mess. It is because variables such as the combination of various stiffeners and subsidiary materials and skiving can cause the error. Perhaps a good machine would be less sensitive to these variables.
If this kind of error occurs, you may think ‘Oh, it is ruined this time’, ‘What’s wrong?’ or ‘Oh, God’.
I think it is because of the tension for the stitching made with little bit thick thread. And it seems that the upper thread and the lower thread are different from each other.
As such, if there is a problem caused by all the mixed condition in the outcome of machine stitching, it is not easy to find its causes.

There is no problem with stitches on the back.
Then, we need to adjust the tension of the lower thread.

First of all, I will remove the thread.
When you remove the thread, you can pull thread from the back stitches to make the upper thread com up and take it out with awl.

I completed removing the thread.
Until then, I thought it would be solved by removing only once, but I don’t remember how many more times I removed it.

This is the top surface with the thread removed.

How is shape of hole?
Is it much neater than griffing of hand stitching?
Now, I will stitch with machine again in line with this hole.
But it is not so difficult to align the hole. Since machine is set with previous set stitching, it would not be a problem if you adjust the guide and width as same as the first machine work.
In fact, teacher Mao in the Leather School showed his skills to stitch for the bag which had unwound thread in 7 years ago.
He even did for the bag made 7 years ago. Will it be quite easy to stitch again for the error made few minutes ago?
But it is true that I get quite nervous.

I adjusted the tension of the lower thread and work again.
This time, stitching is also uneven.

You can see that some stitching are uneven upwards.

Since there is no problem in the back stitching, the tension of upper thread doesn’t seem to be a problem.
In this case, other variables such as connection part and bonding of skiving or subsidiary materials may have a problem, but I can’t exactly know right now. So I can’t fix it.
This is why the machine seems to be a little more difficult than the hand. So we need to make sure that the preceding works are not problematic so that further works will proceed without any problems.
It looks little bit annoying, so I’m having trouble in this situation.

After all, I unwind it all, adjusted finely again and removed the variables that could be adjusted.

And fortunately, I could stitch without any problem. It’s
a good thing.

Machine stitching takes much less time than hand stitching. But if you have problems like this and need to fix the errors, it takes more time, effort and stress than hand.
0. Set the tension of the lower thread and the upper thread properly.
1. It is best not to change the setting of the machine if possible.
2. Or you need to have machine for each thread. In factory, it is possible to reduce the setting time and make fewer errors in the production.
3. Do as much pre-work as possible such as skiving, folding and bonding.
4. Check the variables such as bobbin.
5. Above all, you will need a will to overcome any errors and concentration on working again.
Machine stitching.
It’s not that easy.
