Leather: Sorting & Cutting
This lesson will show you how to sort and cut a leather garment, the way it is done in the leather fashion industry. Because leather is an expensive material to work with, it is important to learn how to cut your garment to get the best yield. And, unlike cutting a fabric garment, leather-cutting requires special attention to details, such as shading, grain and inherent flaws within each skin. Our expert, will teach you how leather skins are measured and then how to sort and shade your skins. He will demonstrate how to lay out your pattern to calculate garment consumption, and then how to expertly cut your garment out of the skins, using tools specific to the leather trade.
| Module | Description | Step |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sorting Skins | 1-7 |
| 2 | Cutting the Jacket / Calculating Leather Consumption | 1-20 |
MODULE 1 • Sorting Skins
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | This lesson will teach you what you need to know when laying out and cutting a jacket out of lamb leather skins. Before you can cut out your pattern pieces out of leather or suede, you must first sort your skins. Begin, by opening a bundle of skins. A “bundle” is defined as a 12-unit, rolled and tied bundle of skins that are part of a “pack,” that in the leather industry consists of approximately 3,000 square feet of a particular skin quality and color. |
| 2 | You’ll need to sort your skins by weight, grain and shade. Start by folding each skin right side up in the length direction and then lay them down next to each other on the cutting board with about 6” (15.2cm) of each skin showing. This way you will be able to see all of your skins at a glance. Be aware that skins within the same bundle can vary in weight and shade. |
| 3 | Here you can see that even though these skins are from the same bundle and color, they vary in shade. |
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