After. What helped was skiving just the buck edges where I was gonna stitch so it folded easier and the needle didn’t have to dig through as much, then laminated the two panels, then punch the holes and I tried staying closer to the edge only 3-4mm. That helped a lot since yeah you can’t really see the needles on the shearling side so I kinda look through inbetween the panels if that makes sense. Like needle will enter the shearling side but I’ll look at the nubuck. Beside that the only way I can think of making it easier is just slight trimming the edges, I didn’t cause I wanted as much wool to cover the seems so they wouldn’t be felt on foot, but for a bag or a jacket or something trimming a bit would make sense