What Needles Are Needed For Sewing Leather?

If you’re sewing leather, it’s important to use the right needle size. The wrong needle can damage your leather or cause other problems with your project. That’s why we want to help you understand what each number means and how it will affect your stitching.

We all want our projects to turn out perfectly, so let us help by giving you some tips on using different needles for different materials! You won't regret investing in this information - especially when it comes time to show off that beautiful new bag or wallet!

Unlike other material, leather is commonly measured by the ounce. The thickness is gauged by a oz measurement. For example, a 4 oz piece of leather will be 1/16" thick. While an 8 oz piece of leather is 1/8" thick, and so on. The heavier the oz, the thicker the leather.

Most upholstery leather material is no heavier than 12 oz. this is because French seams are commonly used to combine pieces of leather together. It's very difficult to try and sew heavy (thick) pieces of leather together because leather doesn't have a high elasticity percentage.

The R point Groz-Beckert needle is a great needle for leather, as long as it is under 4 oz. The R point is considered "sharp" and can punch through materials of all types quite easily.

When stitching on thicker pieces of leather, we recommend using a cutting point needle. These needles are designated by the letters "DI", "S", "LR" "LL", and "D". A TRI point needle has a special shape and point which is exclusively designed to slice and penetrate material with little resistance. This detail makes any size within these needle styles a popular choice when embellishing or stitching on thicker leather.

We do not distribute those needles but instead we sell leather sewing kits including pre-cut leather parts, tool set with high-quality thread with high-quality needles and video tutorial. Visit our collection to learn more