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The spirit of industrial design demands I learn to sew (and how I discovered the Singer 15-91)

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I want to be able to make a leather sofa, and a messenger bag, and an iPad case. Stuff made with fabric. So a few months ago I decided to learn to sew, because although all of those items exist in the marketplace, the available designs don't appeal to me. In the true ID spirit, I figure I should learn what I need to learn in order to make these things myself.

Three ways I can think of to learn something new are go to school for it, get an apprenticeship or learn it from a book. Sure there are Instructables and YouTube videos, but in the absence of curation you can spend a lot of time wading through junk. I found a couple online tutorials on how to build a sofa, and they were the ugliest goddamn things I'd ever seen--I wouldn't buy 'em for ten dollars if they came with a twenty stuffed between the cushions.

I looked into a local upholstery class, but the fabrics they work with are light, frilly things. I want to sew heavy-duty stuff like leather and vinyl, not gauzy stuff that comes in flower prints. And I couldn't find any books on how to make a sofa, but I came across a book on automotive upholstery on Amazon and ordered it, figuring if you could make leather car seats and benches you could probably adapt that knowledge to couches.

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The photos inside the book are almost worthless--tiny, grainy black-and-whites where you can't make out crucial details--but the information inside seemed good.

Now it was time to find a machine....

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