MonicaJacobson

Ray, I told my husband about it, and I'm very intrigued by the idea. I'll get back to you after I've bought my whole family presents, and see if I have any money left for postage.

Very cool, Chris!

Tatyana, my favorite belt, ever.

Sweet! I'll definitely look into that, thanks!

LOL, no, I don't. We'll see how it goes.

Gotta' make my little brother a knife sheath, then I'll get to work!

Nice job, Chris! I look forward to seeing what else you come up with! Now I'm jealous - I wish I could divert my husband into leatherworking. He says he can make anything I want on his machine for me, but I have to learn adobe illustrator first. Or Solidworks. Whichever.

snubby, I really like the widening keeper on your belts. Cool touch. Nice holsters too!

I feel like people expect the gusset to pop out with the style you're currently making. Like Tom said, a different seam would fix your problem, but give you a different look. Does it still stick out when the bag is full and weight put on the straps?

Oh yes. Just PM Joanna directly. I got a really good joke from there. My brothers thought it was pretty funny over Thanksgiving. :-D

They look great, Joe!

fanninator - I've read that Western Bridle is more like what we were hoping for. More oily, and heavily hot stuffed, as opposed to English Bridle, which is only lightly hot stuffed. I think I read that on Wicket and Craig's brochure I got with their samples. I need to get some latigo samples - that may also be more like what I was hoping for English Bridle. Should have asked Joe - after I bought it, I realized at least one of his totes has an English Bridle pocket, and it looks exactly like what I bought. Glazed and lacquered looking, rather than waxy. Michael, Thanks! I've heard that actual British English Bridle is more waxy than American English Bridle. I might try some, next time I order from Abbey England. Thanks for the source review!

Nice! I hadn't thought to do a deer skull - a really cool take on the traditional deer head wallet.

Very, very cool!

You're going to have a serious fight on your hands.

They both look awesome! Especially the cream one - I like the brown leather a lot, but the larger bag looks more proportional with those straps.

I don't know what that thing is, but it's awesome.

I just ran into the same question. I was making a purse that I wanted to leave natural veg tan, but I didn't really want to make it stiffer with resolene. Maybe I should have..... What I did, and I hope it was right, was clean it with saddle soap, apply a coat of neatsfoot oil to the front and the back (on different days), and then I applied about three coats of Aussie leather conditioner. It has some wax in it. Between each coat, I heated it up with a blow dryer so the leather would absorb it, and buffed it out. It leaves a nice glow, but it's not plasticized like resolene. However, I dare say resolene would be a sturdier finish.

I'm not even into baseball (at all), but I think that's a pretty sweet idea.

Nice color, and nice dogs!

I would never have started leatherworking if I had realized how expensive it would be. Good thing I had no idea, because I love it! It cost me about $1200 the first year, and I was spending as little money as possible, and wasn't even getting nice tools. So yeah.. it can be expensive. But it's also not necessarily the best idea to dive in and buy tons of expensive tools without trying some things first. Also, if you look through this forum, you'll find a lot of old threads (and threads from last week) where people ask for tool lists and tips for just starting out. See what you can find. This place is even better than Tandy, in terms of learning. Lastly, leather is very popular, and if you make good products, which you are likely to do, since you come from an experienced sewing background, you'll be able to make the money back very quickly.