that's not my bag, baby!

[Drac]

well, I decided to give a go at the bag a couple of others made (and I envied their skills), so here it is. I even managed to learn a couple things along the way, such as when the directions say "apply in a circular motion" it doesn't mean rub in. at least I was able to even out the color for the most part. overall though I'm very pleased with the way it came out and will probably be adding these to the myriad other items I make to sell. joy. more work. anyway, leme know what you guys think!

[TomSwede]

Ah man, you know I love those skulls!

Very pleasing first try and I love the way you've stitched it, it gives it a nice shot of sparkling elegance (trying to be poetic, sweet skulls make this way,-)

Did you fold and glue the softsides before sewing, or glued them or no glue at all. Stitching one side to the other or from bottom middle and up?

Hey, does any one of those canisters with chemicals ever have an instrution that apply?

Very nice done!

Almost forgot to mention, nice handle and is it possibly...a chain in there?

Tom

Edited March 7, 2008 by TomSwede

[Spider]

Now this is a pretty bag. I love it. Great work Drac. You know I love the skulls too. Ok so now there are 3 scary ass bags floating around this forum....lol. Great work bro. What do you stitch with?

[Drac]

tom

thanks! I stitched the sides like doing the wallets. front to front, the folded it over the edge and did the second stitch which you can see, and did it solid from one end to the other. made for some interesting holding while stitching, I tell ya! instructions?!?! we don' need no steenkin' instructions!

spider

thanks too! I stitched the top edge of the sides with a kenmore and stitched the rest of it a tippman boss. those are the only 2 machines I have and I refuse to stitch by hand. *L*

[steveb]

I really like the way you handled the gussets and edge treatment - very nice.

[Spider]

I soooo need to get a tippman boss. DAMN IT!!! Great job bro.

[TomSwede]

Ah now I got it . I'm a bit slow but tonite it's worse;-)

It's elegant!

Don't know squat about the sewingmachines yet (well I know they're expensive here in Sweden) so I can't even begin to imagine what it looked like sewing this in a machine.

I like handstitching, it's painful and good

Have a nice weeken now I'm sure tied down to the make a living job this one, sucks!

Tom

[leatheroo]

drac, so nice. love the stitching...i just avoid any project that needs hand stitching....might get a machine one day...need a work space before i get that...the kitchen tables over run.

[Drac]

steve

thanks much! was trying to do it a little different than the other "scary ass bags" (*L*) on here.

spider

I like mine so I recommend 'em. just expect to spend a bit of time with it to get used to it and calibrated to what you want.

tom

um.. yeeeeah... handstitching... okaaaay. you stick to that m'man! *L* weekend? dunno what that is! I thought "week" was just another word for "several years". *L*

roo

many thanks! I don't blame ya for avoiding stitching. I avoided it like the plague until I got my machine. and you definitely need to get ya a workspace soon so you can turn out even more lovelies.

[Tangent Creations]

Woo! Very nice! I've not seen one like that before!

I have a regular sewing machine and a big industrial machine that I avoid like the plague! I want a Tippman boss *sigh* Almost everything I make is handstitched unless it's light enough for the Janome...

Oh, and I agree about weekends and I'm not sure what a "kitchen table" is...LOL!

[steveb]

Drac-taking a closer look at your bag, i see a problem I am dealing with

and have been encountering on occasion in my own work and it has to do

where the carving is getting bent around a curve - kind of breaks the edge of the carving...like on the chin of your lower skull

i am not sure what to do - other than carve less deeply (duh) or use an applique (not the look i want)

or simply move my art around to accommodate the curve of the material - sometimes hard to do..like on your bag

Since i line most of my work and tend to use a heavier weight of vegtan in most applications,

i know my work still has decent strength, but i know the carving is going to take a beating..

so - how do all you slicksters handle it when you carving is getting bent on a fold?

[Roger]

that is really cool! you did a great job on the bag

[Spider]

I think that knowing a weak point in the bend will mean maybe evaluating and even reinforcing from the inside. The carving will bend but some color dabbing and reinforcement might help for future stretch. Like a patch... That's why I lined the inside of my bag leather strip.

[Drac]

steve

not sure what ya mean by there being a break in the carving at the chin. took a very close look at the bag coz I was worried I might have missed something wrong but there's no prob there and not really any stress in that area and considering the size of the bag, it'd be kinda hard for anyone to put in so much stuff that I doubt there'll ever be a prob with it splitting. I can see that being a prob with some things though and have thought about that before. do appreciate the look-out though!

beeza

thanks! now let's see one from you too! you could do one that matches seat you've made for a couple's bike. *L*

[Roger]

beeza

thanks! now let's see one from you too! you could do one that matches seat you've made for a couple's bike. *L*

LOL! i'm sure my wife would love to have one.

some time when i'm not so busy. i finally have a few days that i don't have a seat job to do and am pulling my chop apart for paint never enough time

[TomSwede]

Drac-taking a closer look at your bag, i see a problem I am dealing with

and have been encountering on occasion in my own work and it has to do

where the carving is getting bent around a curve - kind of breaks the edge of the carving...like on the chin of your lower skull

i am not sure what to do - other than carve less deeply (duh) or use an applique (not the look i want)

or simply move my art around to accommodate the curve of the material - sometimes hard to do..like on your bag

Since i line most of my work and tend to use a heavier weight of vegtan in most applications,

i know my work still has decent strength, but i know the carving is going to take a beating..

so - how do all you slicksters handle it when you carving is getting bent on a fold?

This can be a problem when making bracers. I use varoius tricks to avoid the situation but I think most of them is based on trying to create an illusion for the eye.

Like you I do use alot of heavy backrounding to make certain objects appear to stand out more. I did some embossing on the nose of that Motörhead bracer in show off forum to draw the focus more to the middle of the object 'cuz i didn't like those mouth thingies got drawn backwards around the arm.

When designing myself I try to adapt to the desired shape. The Ozzy bracer, also in show off, had one original layout from customer on paper. I redraw changing some stuff of tha bats lines and addea some red tribals aswell and also worked with red contours to make some lines pop out more. That one was an orgy in hours but man it's pleasing to be fully satisfied with your work.

The real problem I think is that when you bend to much, the material on the inside has nowhere to go so when it gets squeezed it want to take the logical way out wich is up through our precious tooling surface, just like when squeezing a banana. On the inside there's a lot of pressure on the mass of the leather and on the outside there is tension and the mass is stretched apart allowing room for the pressurized mass to escape. I think! I skipped alot of classes at school including this kind of boring ****;-)

I'm not saying I'm any good with this but I think about it and hope theres some pointers in what i write here. I don't think there is a general solution to the prob and that various tricks have to be played.

Tom

[Tina]

I aspecially like the way you attached the soft leather to the carved piece. I guess it's done with a mashine? It looks really nice and finished. Also the color of the carved pice is nice, I personally like that "old, antique" finish on leather:-)

[Drac]

tina

thanks and yep, used a tippman boss to do it. the color is actually accidental since I was going for something else. fortunately I was able to get this look after the boo-boo. *L* gonna try a few changes with the next one though. add a lining and a couple other things. see how that works out.