anyone help with clean stitich ??

Hello :)

Apart from what everyone told you, I would also tell you to focus on having a consistent pull tension and consistent pull angle for your stitches. If you zoom in and look closely on the front stitch, they are not all equaly laid down.

Yes, a regular customer would not be able to tell, and to be honest, without zooming in on the picture, it is almost not noticeable.

@ronnieli Taking a look, I see that the edges of the leather are not quite aligned in parts. This may be throwing you off as you stitch. A consistent stitch starts with a consistent edge.

It's also worth noting that soft leathers like the one you are using on the key ring are very sensitive to minute changes unlike firm veg tan leather.

I would probably go ahead and punch all the way through a soft and thin leather project like that. Sometimes the leather can be so thin and soft that it bends as you push your awl through, making more of a problem for your consistency.

I experience the same exact thing so I don't believe its the awl penetration that you speak of. I've been playing around with different techniques as I pull the thread tight and can get slightly different results.

When I pull my thread tight, my left hand is pulling up and away and right hand is down and towards me, like you're playing the guitar as they say. My left hand is holding the thread on the backside of my item. When I pull tight, I notice the thread on the backside is pulled up too. So what I've tried after its tight is to simply grab the thread close to the hole on the left and just pull it down and away from the top edge of the hole.

By no means is this the solution to your problem. As I mentioned above, it can give me a slightly different result. Also, i've tried a smaller thread and that seems to help a little.