Back on the birds

I'm still waiting for the casters to call me about making my leg molds, so in the meantime I thought I'd try making some leather birds because I'd like to make an edition of leather birds with pewter legs.

But it's hard. My machine doesn't like sewing leather. My Indian Rajdoot industrial machine isn't up to the task yet (needs so fine tuning!) so I'm a bit stuck. I can sew leather to fabric but not leather to leather.

On this bird I'd like to sew on a pleated frill. But I can't fit it under my machine foot. Crisis!!