Slide the whole assembly back to the eye of the needle and thread the end of the yarn through the eye.

Now pull the yarn over the eye and the back of the needle. The holes you pierced into the yarn will hold fast the yarn end protruding from the eye.



Pull tight so that it flattens out, twist and apply some more shoemaker's pitch for better grip if necessary.

Time to start reporting on the back seam: this time I wanted to do it the way portrayed in Göpfrich's Lederfunde aus Mainz (op cit), i.e. with a double running stich from the inside and another one from the outside. Here is the diagram from the book:


Reportedly two different yarn strengths were used with the finds, I did this with the first of the pair, this time, for possible comparison in the long run, chose to use the same yarn. First I marked where the stitching holes should be. This of course needs to be done both from the inside (flesh side) and from the outside (grain side), as we have two seams. With the first I put the holes only 5 mm apart, but that seems a little too narrow to me, as the holes from the other side come in between those, so in the end you have a piece of yarn passing from one side to the other every 2,5 mm! I went to 8 mm distance this time, but 10 mm would be ok, too I guess. Making those rows of holes neatly and exactly lined up is the most important thing for an even seam ...
(Edit: I went back to my sources in the meantime and found that at least one original with the finer thread has 5-6 stitches per 10 mm(!) and the stitches of the other seam 6-8mm apart)

Yarn length for this type of seam is about 4x the length of the length of the piece you want to sew. I am using blunt long and flexible steel needles here, until not so long ago a shoemakers choice was a pig's bristle (right word? - stiff and yet flexble hair from a pig), in fact the needles I am using are called steel bristles (Stahlborsten in German). Before actual sewing I found that I had to widen the holes once more, as the leather tends to close those holes, especially when pressed or moved. That of course is exactly the effect we are looking for, opening a hole with the awl 2-3x wider than the yarn's diameter so that it passes through easily and then have that hole close itself around the yarn again nicely.