DoubleC

I'm trying to understand where the strap is Kevin because I have very little spatial relationship abilities. Do you have the strap going the width of the gusset at the top and then the gusset being pulled inward with the stitch, or etc. Or do you have it going from back to front panel in front of the top gusset and then the stitch, etc. I think my brain is leaking out of my ears now. Not from what you said but I've been working on this bag all day and thinking about the flap at the same time and I'm having a hard time concentrating at this point. c Oh and Mike you really weren't kidding about the bungee cord were you? I had it positioned wrong in my head too where it went from gusset top to the other gusset top and back which is why I thought you were joking. c

I think I'll try the wetting part Mike. And clamp it bent inward until it dries. I just can let myself sacrifice a bungee and I already have holes in it and a round braid to hold the toggles I'm putting on the flap (did you really suggest I use a bungee? Nah I know you too well and that wicked sense of humor you have.) Thanks, I didn't think about the gussets just bowing the wrong way. Cheryl

LOL Kevin, I had a pattern......uh, well kinda, a little bit. I cut the panels out the size of a large priority mail box. If you noticed on the one link I gave you the guys flap was smaller than the bag although that wasn't my intention. I hand sewed 4 layers of leather inside out and had to use a hammer and nail to make the sewing holes, my awl just laughed at me. The pig and rust colored, being thin and soft were stretchy. The embossed veg tanned lining wasn't. Even though I glued then all together first, it was a waste of time. My awl went through the veg tanned and hit either the rust or the pig depending on which side I was sewing, and those leathers just stretched. My point kinda being I'm not resewing this beast again. If you look at this again http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=42470&pid=264209&st=0entry264209 mine looks just like that. I mean when the flap is over the gusset. To me it looks like things would fall out of it, well ok, maybe only if I turned it upside down but still. Maybe on a soft sided bag there's no way to prevent that or maybe as it get broken in and the shaped to it's natural rectangular shape even that wouldn't happen. I don't know, I just wanted to fix it if it was a gusset problem before I got more of the trim on it, but I'm going to go ahead with it, and stamp, dye and sew the strap and toggle holders on and actually fasten it with something in it and see where it looks like it needs to be fixed, if it looks like it needs it at all. Because it's for me and if it isn't exactly perfect I'm ok with that. If it was for someone else, I wouldn't be ok with it.

It's the flap isn't really wide enough except well it's kinda too wide, well lets say the cow didn't give it up exactly even it's wide enough to begin but narrows pretty quickly on one side. And there probably is a lot of slack in the gussets if you mean their softness. So if we assume it's both, and I know you don't do bags, does that quick silver brain of yours have any ideas on how to fix it? Do you think rounding them like the panel in the front would help? I have a lot of time and effort invested in this so don't want to do anything irreversible at this point. But I don't want to proceed with the handle and strap yet and have them in the wrong place when I figure out how to fix it. OH and the flap isn't lined with anything, maybe it's just too floppy, but I am lining it where the handle is going.

That's not the type of bag I'm making Keven. Mine is all soft and the gusset gives it form but it's soft leather too. I used 1 & 1/2oz pig for the gusset lined with 3 oz embossed veg tanned and the panels are 3oz lined with the same 30z veg tanned. It stands up by itself but all floppy like and the flap I left in the natural state, way if came off the cow, uneven. This is going to have a strap and handle. It's a combination of this bag: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=42470&pid=264209&st=0entry264209 with this flap http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=42383#entry264760 It's not molded or that 'formed.' The gusset is now trimmed even with the panels, waited to make sure I had enough to do the bag first. I just think the flap shouldn't have to kind go up and over the gussets the way it does Kevin.

I know when you have a flap on a bag, the front panel is supposed to be rounded at the top, which I've done. Yet the flap still doesn't want to flop over easily, have to situate it over and around or between the 4" gusset. The flap is not a separate piece but part of the back panel. Should the gusset be rounded too in the front or even on the front and back so it doesn't interfere with the flap? This is my first messenger bag and with the gusset squared off it looks like things could fall out. Thanks so much, Cheryl

I'm going to be the one going against the grain here. I love lacing although all I know is Mexican Basketweave or usually just called Round Braid. But I don't like doing Sheridan style work at all. I like doing my own designs or what a customer asks for. Now Sheridan is probably the first thing that comes to mind when people think leatherwork. I don't think you're weird at all. If I had a customer that wanted it, I'd have to really think about it because it probably wouldn't be my best work, but I'd try and do my best. I know how to do it, rather clumsily but I could sharpen up those skills if I couldn't steer the customer another way. We all have things in our mind we already like about this craft when we start and I don't see anything weird about it. After you start by doing the things you like you might see the beauty in lacing 6 months from now, just as I see the beauty in Sheridan. You might have a project you're working on that to you just cries out for lacing. Or maybe not. That's not weird. Look at all the different styles of leatherwork people do on here. It's more than just some people doing holsters and other people primarily doing belts; there are as many styles of design, including none other then dyeing the leather and leaving the surface clean of anything else as there are different projects people are drawn too. After 10 months of this being my second home I have seen people can do anything with leather including the design of choice and make it beautiful. Do what you enjoy because otherwise you'll soon end up not wanting to do it. Just an opinion of course, take anything you can use and leave the rest. Cheryl

You're quite welcome.

That's means that you haven't said anything that could be construed as inappropriate or hostile, unlike some of us on really, uh, off days :-) Cheryl

Some of us who are visual-motor impaired and don't have a stitching horse yet (mines coming next month, I'm so excited) actually SS from right to left, and I can't hold two needles and an awl since I haven't had a clamp of any sort yet, so I go around mine twice, making sure the stitch on the second round goes in the same way through each hole. Now that I have a horse coming I hope to be able to actually do it the correct and much faster way with two needles and holding the awl at all times, but I have very clumsy hands so I may never learn to do it the fast way. I usually use it for a blind stitch because of that. Cheryl.

Bill you have a stitching horse? I have one coming next month, bought it from a member on here. How much easier that's going to make things. Jonathan your things are beautiful. I love your toggle and loop close, just put that on a messenger bag of mine, loops round braided and the toggle sticks I found in the yard :-) Mine still has all the last parts needing done now, strap attached, handle, sealing, finishing, etc. But I like your work very much. Cheryl

LOL, my thoughts exactly Cheryl .......Cheryl

I didn't think they were dead, in the picture they look like silverish/beigish disks, LOL. I didn't know they were real flowers or something

Kevin can you put on here some time how you make those? Just like any other molded thing with the bottom sewn on? I think those are so cool. c Had to edit, what ARE those in the vase? LOL. Inquiring minds.......

I just read the thing Cheryl sent me to, plus now what you said. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around putting two ton of pressure on a polyurethane embossed die (didn't know what a die or clicker was) and making a leather impression. Absolutely amazing.

I'm still trying to understand what people click, is that like snapping your fingers or something? I also don't know what people press, seriously Kevin. Do you use a press like I use my c-clamp on more, I mean bigger?

leather has to heal itself? I'm making a messenger bag and the panels and gusset material is thin and stretchy and the lining is thin and NOT stretchy. My awl laughs at me when I try and use it. So I'm nailing the sucker to a cutting board like a catfish you're getting ready to skin. Then I'm using a finishing nail to make the holes for SS. Now I don't want to nail it to the cutting board, sew a stitch, nail, sew, nail sew and therefore by the time I get to the end of on side the holes are already 'healing' themselves. Takes me using jewelry pliers to get the needle through. I'm ok with all that. I just want to know WHY when I make a hole in leather I DON'T want it doesn't ever heal Since I seem to do that routinely Cheryl

Hey biggun, I just went and checked and in the last 7 days I've had 175 visitors and 49 were from LWs. It breaks it down really well for you like that if it's direct from my link here. Not if they went to my site first then to Etsy though or direct traffic.

Kevin I think the most valuable thing I've learned working with leather, even though I've just been doing it for about a year now, is there are no mistakes. What you get sometimes is very cool although slightly different than you expected products :-) I have a lot of cool and slightly different things here around the house :-) Cheryl

I have a 15-91 I use for everything. It's not an 'industrial' machine but no one told it. That potted motor on it makes it a beast. I've rehabbed 4 of them, and can break them apart faster than I can sew with them :-) I wouldn't trade mine for anything, but Art has much more experience with different machines than I do. But I sew leather with mine all the time, just not 8 hours a day every day. That would break down any 'domestic' machine eventually. I'm getting ready to sew a leather strap for a messenger bag I'm making on mine later next week. Hoped to be already doing it but these things have so much you need to do to them, and much more time consuming than I expected. Cheryl (BTW I got mine for $54, with a cabinet but then again I'm a pretty good bargain hunter.)

I can't wait to see them, really. Just be careful of the 'bug.' Cost goes way up after you catch that :-) Cheryl

This was what I meant by a blood knot. Cheryl

Wow, that's some great advice, some of which I'm doing locally but not online. I am copying all of these things into word so I can just go through and check off what I've done to market, starting with the worst, and then the 'better' things that I'm not totally lousy at. You folks are being such a big help. Cheryl

Beautiful work. Cheryl

OK, we're talking about two different knots Bruce. I've slit strings like the to run them through on my saddle. Cheryl