cjdevito

Thanks. I'd honestly prefer to be doing my own interiors, I'm just not there yet. Not a knock on the CF inserts which are very well made and high quality, but I'd rather be able to say I made something entirely from scratch. I've managed to pull it off on my last few larger projects but really need to try harder with wallet interiors.

Thanks. Stitching is something I know I still need to work on; it's better than when I started but clearly not where it should be. That's not edge paint, though. Black sharpie then burnishing with saddle soap and canvas.

No problems staying closed, and I did sew all the way around. You'd need to with this one, since that zipper in the middle open up directly onto the backside of the leather - so if you left a middle gap in your sewing anything you put in the zippered pocket would just fall out. I left the leather a little oversized and glued it around the interior while it was folded closed, then after I sewed it together I went back and trimmed off the excess leather at the side. I think the final width of the leather ended up being 9 3/8" if that helps you at all.

Absolutely gorgeous. Really, really nice work.

Thanks you two. Very kind words Bill. As far as the lacing, I just followed the instructions from the old 'How to Lace and Stitch' book. Glad I had that to fall back on... started off by watching a video tutorial of it by George Hurst where I swear he's leaving out steps as I could not even get the thing started by following his instructions even after a dozen tries. Once I started working from the book it came together right away though. Renee, from your comments I'm guessing you're using gel antique and not the paste? I do as well, but as someone else here once wrote in another thread the gel antique can best be summed up as unpredictable. I've had a couple of projects veer off from where I intended because of it, so I feel your pain. For what it's worth, on this one I used Bee Natural's RTC finish/resist that Springfield Leather is now carrying and found it worked very well for resisting the gel. Much better than either tandy's super shene or block out products.

8-9 oz leather, resisted and antiqued. Black suede lining. Laced with alternating natural and black calfskin lace. My first time working with lace, but it seemed like the way to go on this one.

I actually wrote Kevin at Springfield Leather a couple weeks back to see if he'd be interested in contacting the tannery to carry the wolf fish leather. I heard back to him that he was going to contact them and see if they could arrange something, but have not yet had any news on it.

I'll second that. I used the tandy pro black for the first time a week or two ago and got really great results with that. I find the trick to getting the best results with the tandy pro dyes to be just applying them to damp leather with a damp sponge.

Wanted to try one of Chaylor-Fennelli's interiors so I picked up their passport wallet interior. Constructive criticism welcome.

Assassin's Creed, huh? It'll be interesting to see your finished result.

Go to images.google.com and type in whatever sort of image you're looking for. When the results come up, click the search tools button and then change the type to line drawing. Clip Art will often yield good results as well You won't really find patterns specifically for leathercraft this way, but you'll often find things that will work well as a design on leather. Other good resources include embroidery design sites (check out hand embroidery patterns on a site like www.urbanthreads.com to see what I mean) and, yes, tattoo designs.

Thanks guys, but as I posted above they have already responded. Quoted from the above, here's what they said.... Use a slightly dampened sponge to apply 2 coats of Eco-Flo Super Shene over the blue Eco-Flo Professional Waterstain as a resist. Then apply smoke black Eco-Flo Hi-Lite Color Stain, also with a slightly dampened sponge, removing the excess with a soft cloth to keep as much Hi-Lite in the impressions as possible.

I work in compliance in the medical field. The above would be true if there was any identifiable patient info on the films themselves... patient name, medical record number, social security number or similar. If there's nothing on the film to connect it up to an individual patient it wouldn't be considered protected health information (PHI) and HIPAA wouldn't apply. That said many medical practices prefer to err on the side of caution where the law is concerned.

Just to be sure we're talking about the same thing and I didn't screw up the link, here's the photo I was referring to....

I'd given up on hearing from Tandy on this (I'd emailed them a few days ago now) so posted this, and no sooner had I done so than I got an email from them with the answer. Just in case anyone else might be wondering what the answer is, here's what they said....

Blue dye on one of the new handbag kits Tandy is selling, seen here... http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/home/department/New-Items/44314-00.aspx It doesn't look quite like any of the eco-flo blue dyes, at least not straight from the bottle. I wrote tandy to ask but haven't gotten a reply. Anyone care to hazard a guess what was used?

I'm actually almost positive that's tandy's eco-flo smoke black hi-lite stain. It goes on darker than that, but if you use a finish that peels a lot of it off that's exactly what you get.

Thanks Cogs, Ramrod. Initially I planned to do just that - stitch line on the flap, stitch the strap tabs and the handle rather than use the rivets, plus replace the buckles with snaps and make the gusset wider to give the bag a bit more depth - but in the end I decided to stick with the pattern as published. I figured with it being my first real construction project I probably shouldn't make it more difficult for myself by deviating from the pattern. If I make another, though, these are all definitely changes I would like to make.

Heh. I didn't say I let it stop me. But if I'm being honest, I dread all of that. Was an interesting exercise to make the list and figure out what I do dread and what I don't; if nothing else it highlighted to me that swivel knife practice is really what I need to be working on.

I'm afraid of carving circles. I'm afraid of carving long straight lines. I'm afraid of carving parallel straight lines. I'm afraid of cutting closely spaces lines. I'm afraid of using any geometric stamp that doesn't indicate where the next impression should go (like how the 'teeth' of tri-weave stamps do). I'm afraid of how much dye the application of finish will remove. I'm afraid of cutting out pattern pieces. I never quite seem to get the edges as straight and even as I want when I cut them.

What they said. I'd be very curious to see the details if you're willing to share them.

Thanks, all of you. I greatly appreciate the feedback. To my considerable surprise a couple guys who followed my progress on this on another (non-leather) forum I frequent are offering to pay me if I'd make some of these for them, so I guess I'm going to have to get used to the idea that I don't suck at this quite as much as I'd believed. I see the mistakes in the work though, even if they don't. And want to improve. So pointers where I got it wrong would be welcome indeed. I promise I can take it :D And, really, about the arm stuff... honestly, I just mentioned it towards explaining some of the choices I made (using a hole punch rather than an awl, no tooling, etc). It's been a long recovery that hasn't been much fun, but I got off easy and have to remind myself to look on the bright side. It didn't kill me; I didn't even lose the arm. Compared to those alternatives a weak forearm & tingling/numbness in my fingers are a small enough price to pay. That said, I just splurged on an SK3 swivel knife a couple weeks ago, and am looking forward to practicing my knife cuts again. May take a while before I'm any good with it, but I'm determined.

Just finished this a few minutes ago. It's my first construction-from-scratch leatherwork. Definitely bits of it I'm not happy with, but I learned a lot in the process of making it. A few words, since I haven't posted much since I signed up here last fall. I started last october with one of tandy's beginners kits and fell in love with leatherwork. Unfortunately, last february I ended up hospitalized with what turned out to be necrotizing fascitis - flesh eating bacteria - in my left elbow and forearm. I got off very lucky, with the only permanent damage being losing a lot of the muscle in the arm to the scalpel and a good bit of nerve damage in my left hand. The nerve damage is definitely making tooling more of a challenge for me (though I'm still working at it!), so I decided to try my hand at construction instead. This bag is the result. It was constructed with super cheap clearance 8-9oz veg tan shoulders from Tandy, using the pattern they sell on leathercraftlibrary.com as the dispatch rider package. Dyed with eco-flo products. Holes punched with a rotary punch. Not the preferred method I know, but the lack of strength in my arm made awl work on thick leather frustrating. Critiscism welcome. I made plenty of mistakes and know it. Pats on the back welcome too :D

You're not weird. When I started last october I looked at lacing and it left me completely cold, didn't expect I'd ever even consider using it. I still haven't used it, but I've come to appreciate it and I can definitely see it as a good choice for many projects. To be honest I'm kind of looking forward to giving it a try at some point.

Fashion Institute of Technology in manhattan offers a certificate program in leather apparel design and construction. It's auditable, but has a lengthy list of pre-reqs if you actually want to get the certificate. They offer nothing on carving or tooling leather. 3rd Ward in Brooklyn occasionally has leather jewelry design classes, but it's pretty minimal and again, no carving or tooling.