Sewing the Sheaths

The knifemaker has had the nail knife sheaths sown on a machine -- just a straight line, run down the curved edge. Today, the knifemaker's aunt and lady friend are experimenting with hand-sewing the edge of the sheath. The first handful of sheaths sported a running stitch, a whip stitch, and a blanket stitch. Each offered a different look, but the knifemaker's dad said the whip stitch was the way to go.

To make the holes through the leather, the knifemaker's aunt began with a 4-hole leather punch and hammer and pounded the punch through the leather. A few moments of that brought the knifemaker in from the forge to offer a leather hand punch which made the holes on one side of the sheath curve easier but needed much more manual strength than the knifemaker's aunt had. Each line of holes along the curved edge of a sheath required another pass with a needle to force a matching hole on the backside of the sheath. The needle bent doing this.

Luckily, it turns out the knifemaker's lady friend is a hole whisperer and was able to tease the punch to make holes all the way through the sheath layers. Whoa!  Things went much faster after that. The holes were made and the sewing moved along. By the end of the day, 48 sheaths had been sown in preparation for the knives.

Initially, a running stitch was used on some but eventually
all had a back-and-forth whip stitch.