Both vinyl fabrics and faux leather fabrics have similar properties. Both are water resistant, durable and synthetic and both have plastic in them. This means the same tips apply for handling and sewing with both fabrics. Read on to find out how best to sew with these fabrics.
Fabric weight
With vinyl fabrics the higher the gauge the thicker the fabric. The lower gauges, the thinner vinyl fabrics are easy to sew and very flexible great for things like pouches. The middle gauges are a bit sturdier and work well for things like tablecloths and protective covers. The thicker gauges are a lot stiffer and less flexible and are used for things like windows in tents.
Faux leather is measured in GSM (grams per square meter), the higher the GSM the thicker the fabric.
Under 200GSM: is lightweight, ideal for making gloves, lightweight leggings, and costume design.
300-450 GSM: Is midweight, great for fashion jackets, skirts, accent patches, and pouches.
Over 450 GSM: Is heavyweight, good for furniture upholstery, automotive interiors, heavy tote bags, and marine applications.
Our heavyweight upholstery faux leather fabric, £9.50 per metre.
Cutting vinyl or faux leather
Cutting these fabrics can bluten your rotary cutter blade so it's best to keep a spare rotary cutter blade just for cutting vinyl or faux leather. You could also use scissors, but I would use paper scissors not your best sewing shears.
If cutting around a pattern piece do not use pins to attached the pattern, they will leave permanent marks in your vinyl or faux leather. Use pattern weights instead, or if you don’t have any tape the pattern piece on with washi tape. Washi tape doesn’t leave a sticky residue on the vinyl like other tapes do.
Removing creases
Unless you are buying vinyl on a roll it will inevitably have creases in it. You will also find it creases when turning through your project. Don’t ever apply your iron directly to the material, the plastic will melt and stick to your iron.
The easiest way to remove creases is to use your hair dryer to soften the vinyl, then lie it somewhere flat with a heavy book or 2 on top of it. This will flatten it out quickly. If you get the creases when turning through and can’t lie it flat just keep putting the heat from the hairdryer onto it (move it around so you aren’t melting one bit too much) and you should find the creases drop out.
Alternatively, you can iron it on a very low heat, with a pressing cloth between the vinyl and the bottom of the iron. Very quickly glide the iron over it, it does not take much heat to make the vinyl very soft and don't use steam.
Faux leather has fabric on the back so you should iron from the back of your fabric, on a low heat and still using a pressing cloth and no steam.
Sewing with vinyl or faux leather
There are 2 key issues with sewing these materials
- Pins will leave holes so don't use them
The easy option is to use fabric clips to hold your materials together. But on some occasions, you can’t use clips eg. if the vinyl is not near the edge of the fabric, so then you can tape it instead. Tapes like washi tape, masking tape or Maker Tape have much less glue on them so don’t leave so much reside on the vinyl as Sellotape will. It will hold the vinyl in place as you sew, then you peel the tape off after. Test the tape on a scrap first, sew through it and make sure it peels off easy and doesn’t leave gluey residue.
Also bear in mind that your needle will leave permanent puncture marks too so ideally you don’t want to make any mistakes or have to unpick as you would be left with visible holes in the vinyl.
- Because of the plastic in the materials they can grip to your machine as you sew them.
Vinyl has a tendency to stick to your presser foot and/or needle plate when you try and sew it which means it does not easily feed through. There are a few things you can do to prevent this. Ideally if you plan to sew vinyl frequently you would be best investing in a non-stick foot/Teflon (and the needle plate). This does exactly as the description says, it makes tricky fabrics like vinyl glide through as if you were sewing cotton – nice and easy. Both are plasticky rather than metal so ‘sticky’ fabrics like vinyl don’t cling to them.
With faux leather just the Teflon/non-stick presser foot should be fine as the fabric underside of the material won't stick like the plastic topside.
If you don’t want to invest in a Teflon foot/needle plate at this time, or are only planning to sew these fabrics on rare occasions you could use tape to cover the bottom of your foot (and your needle plate if you find it is sticking) and this will give the same non-stick effect.
Another solution is to place a sheet of tracing paper above and below the vinyl, or above the faux leather, this also breaks the friction with the needle plate and foot. When you have finished sewing just tear it off and throw it away.
Shop our faux leather fabrics here.
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