alackofcolor

The ones that the link I posted takes you to, the 3mm pitch. I believe that makes around 8.5 stitches per inch.

The thread is Ritza 25 Tiger Thread, which apparently is kind of hard to find in this country in full spools, though I have seen it sold. I bought mine in a 50 yard length from this Etsy seller in 0.8 mm thick, colonial tan in color: https://www.etsy.com/transaction/211325167 To make the holes, I used this set of Japanese diamond pricking irons purchased from here: http://www.leathercrafttools.com/shouhin.jsp?id=8387 It's actually a great deal, since you get 5 tools of various prong number for about $30, as opposed to some other websites that sell you one of these tools for $30 which is indistinguishable from those above, as I found out the hard way... The leather is 2-3oz Hermann Oak tooling leather that I bought from Springfield Leather off of Amazon. They sell it in sheets for a decent price. I then stained it with some dark brown stain I got from Tandy's. Haha well thanks. I'm actually getting my Ph.D. in physics, so leatherwork is a nice distraction from that stuff. Before this, I made a gun belt and holster, and two knife sheaths, so I had a bit of warm up going into it.

I used Tanner's Bond or whatever it's called contact cement from Tandy's. It seems to be holding it in there pretty well.

A knife sheath with an Alaskan quarter and black pigskin under a leather cut-out.

I actually made another one with a dark brown thread so I could actually use it without the stitching getting dirty. It looks nice and would probably be my preference if I could have only one. But for emphasizing the stitch, the lighter thread definitely displays it a bit better. It is, but you definitely had a point. And thanks, it's a fun hobby to pick up. It all started because my dad gave me a .45 single action revolver and I wanted to make a holster and gun belt for it. That was my first project back in late May, which I'll probably post eventually.

I'm doing the stitching by hand, due to my fear of sewing machines. I punched diamond-shaped holes with a Japanese pricking iron and then saddle stitched the layers together.

Haha, actually the band-aid was due to another project. I was using a Japanese pricking iron to make diamond holes for stitching and was having trouble getting it out of the leather, so I tugged on it pretty hard and it jump out of the leather and the edge of the pricking iron sliced my index finger open. And then two days later I jabbed an X-acto knife into the tip. So it was a tough week for that finger.

I thought about smaller stitches too, but considering it's a very simple design overall, there's really not much going on except for the stitching. Hammering down the stitches on the outside surfaces would help a bit with the puffing of the leather coming out of the holes, but unfortunately the thread loses its vibrancy of color if you hammer on it too much. If I had it to do over again, I would either use 0.6 mm thread instead of 0.8, or I would have hammered the pricking iron through a little further to make the holes bigger on the outside surfaces. But it's not too bad for my fourth leather project.

The sheath is three layers of leather, with the middle layer cut out to the shape of the knife, so there's a little less than a quarter inch of leather between the blade and the stitch.

The third thing I've made out of leather: a pig skin lined sheath of my own design to protect my chef's knife.

My first wallet, following the template sold by Ian Atkinson of YouTube fame.

SOLD!

My experience has been that you need a decent thickness of leather to get slanted stitches on both sides. If the leather is too thin, it won't hold the pattern very well on one side and you'll get a straight stitch on that side. But for sufficiently thick leather, here's a diagram I made in response to my own questions about how you get nice zig-zags on both sides of the leather, whether the slots are slanted \\\\ or ////. This is a problem I struggled with for a while. I lead with my right hand when I stitch, so the diagram is set up that way. Also, dots on the thread circles mean that the thread is coming out towards me, x's mean it's going away from me.

Does anyone have recommendations on a size 1 edge beveler? Tandy doesn't carry them and most of the ones I've seen come out of Japan or are very expensive custom ones by small American makers. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm looking to sell my Seiwa 6x3mm diamond chisel, which I purchased here: http://www.goodsjapan.jp/item/leather-craft-items-pricking-i/seiwa-diamond-leather-stitchin/lid=29748230 Accepting offers. I've had it two days and realized that I wanted more spacing than it provided, so it hasn't really been used.