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Leather Keychain Sheep | Sweet Little Leather Project for Easter

Sew the Sweetest Leather Sheep Keychain

Are you or your students ready to start sewing with leather? Then this leather sheep keychain is absolutely perfect. It's a great project to make leading up to Easter, as a small Easter project. Or give it as a gift for Father's Day.
This guide is based on making the sheep in leather's natural color, but of course, you can also choose to dye the leather with leather dye, as shown in step 4, where the sheep's "wool" is painted white with white leather dye. The guide has been created by Ulla Lindholm.

Techniques and Skills:

Sewing with leather
Optionally dye the leather, e.g. black or white

Materials You Will Need:

Download template or design your own.
Leather in two colors, optionally our leather scraps can be purchased
Optionally leather dye and 1-2 pipe cleaners to color the edges
Waxed linen thread that matches the color(s)
Two needles
Sharp universal Stanley hobby knife, or similar
Chisel 10 mm
Chisel 6 mm
Punch tool mini 1.0 mm or chisel 1 mm
Wool or cotton batting for stuffing
Masking tape
Keyring

How to do it:

Step 1

Print the template and cut it out.

Tape the template to your leather with double-sided tape.

Step 2

For the eyes, use 10 mm and 6 mm chisels.

Make all the sewing holes for the sheep.
Use a 1 mm chisel, or alternatively, a needle down into a cork block or a mini hole punch.

Cut out all the leather pieces with a hobby knife.

Step 3

Once all the pieces are cut out, you may choose to dye the leather if you don't have leather scraps in a different color.

Here, a scrap of black leather was used for the sheep's head, legs, and keychain strap.

You can also choose to dye the leather with, for example, black leather dye (100% opaque color) or black leather ink, where the leather's texture still shows after dyeing. However, remember that with leather ink, you can only darken the color; never lighten it.

Step 4

Here is an example of the sheep's "wool" leather dyed with white leather dye.

Since it's a leather dye, you can dye the leather lighter.

Step 5

Start by sewing the head onto the body. Here, black waxed linen thread is used. Sew with saddle stitching, meaning a saddle stitching needle at each end of the thread, which is passed through the sewing holes on each side of the sheep's body. You can see a video of the method here

Then sew the forehead "wool" onto the head and body of the sheep.

Step 6

Glue the pupils of the eyes onto the sheep's body.

Optionally, glue the ears onto the body if desired.

Step 7

Try to assemble all the parts so that you can get a feel for where all the pieces should go.

Remember that the legs and keychain strap should be sewn in between the two sheep bodies.

Step 8

Start sewing again using saddle stitching, beginning on one of the sides of the sheep. Do not start where you will insert the legs or keychain strap.

Step 9

Sew the keychain strap onto the body. Remember to insert a keyring into the leather strap before sewing it in place.

Also sew the legs in between the two sheep bodies and stop when you have about 1/4 of the sewing left.

Take some wool or cotton and stuff it inside the sheep’s body to create a 3D effect.

Step 10

Now finish sewing the rest of the sheep.

And now you have a leather keychain sheep.