Threw away $120 on that trendy 'vegan leather' sewing kit from Etsy

Bought a starter pack from a shop called SewSoulful in Portland last month for making bags, thinking it'd be eco-friendly and easy. Turned out the 'vegan leather' was just plastic coated fabric that cracked after two test seams, and the instructions were useless. Has anyone else had bad luck with those premade fabric kits?

2 comments

2 Comments

richardfox13d ago

You say "vegan leather" in quotes like that's the problem, but I think you're blaming the wrong thing. I've bought three different vegan leather kits from Etsy over the past year and they've all held up fine through multiple projects. The one from SewSoulful specifically, I actually had a great experience with their bag kit. The trick is that you have to treat the material differently than real leather. You can't just jam a thick needle through it without adjusting your machine tension first. Mine cracked on my first try too until I realized I was using a denim needle instead of a microtex one. Once I switched needles and used a Teflon foot, it sewed like butter. The instructions in my kit were pretty straightforward and even had a QR code linking to a video tutorial. Maybe you just got a bad batch or something.

mila_mitchell13d ago

I actually saw a whole Instagram reel from a sewing influencer talking about this exact issue... she said the whole "vegan leather is trash" thing is usually user error, not the material itself. My sister tried one of those kits a few months back and she had the same cracking issues until she watched a YouTube tutorial about using a walking foot instead of a regular presser foot. It's wild how much the technique matters, like you said with the needle swap and all that. QR codes in kits are hit or miss though, I've scanned some that just led to dead links or generic landing pages.