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.

I just noticed from your website that you work out of Cincinnati. That's where I'm at.

I recently purchased a container of Aussie leather conditioner on recommendation from an employee at Tandy's as well as some carnauba cream on recommendation from a YouTube video. I was wondering what the overlap in their uses is as well as the differences, if anyone has experience with both. Thanks.

Those pricking irons look like they make pretty narrow slits. The ones I picked up make diamond holes, which unfortunately probably won't stitch as slanty as the pricking iron you have.

Yours are looking quite a bit nicer than mine. I need to work on getting the thread to sit in the top of the slits instead of sliding down towards the middle. The leather I used for the pictures above was a 5/6 oz piece, quite a bit thicker than my earlier failures. I was actually able to repeat the stitch on another piece of 5/6 oz leather. It seems like with softer or thinner leather, the pattern doesn't want to hold and everything wants to fall completely to the middle. This may just have to be something I have to live with. What are you using to make the holes?

Got it! I'm not entirely sure what I did differently...better see if I can repeat it. http://imgur.com/mSD3yAn http://imgur.com/LBnVJOK

The only thing I have that's thinner is some nylon thread for sewing machines I more or less got the same results, though I will agree, the thinner stuff looks nicer. How are you punching your holes? Thanks for helping me, by the way. I actually stopped at a Tandy's leather store today and they couldn't get it any better than I did.

Nope, no groove. I actually tried 0.8 mm Tiger Thread with a 8.5 spi diamond pricking iron to pretty much the same results. What I have pictured above is the same pricking iron, but a rounder thread at about the same diameter. What was shown above was a single piece of 4/5 oz leather. I just tried again with a much thicker piece of leather (a single piece, not to thin pieces glued) and got more or less the same results. I say more or less because there were a couple of stitches in there where it was slanted on both sides. The issue is that in order to get slants on both sides, the thread on both sides at must both start at the bottom of the hole for a given stitch, but for me, one inevitably will push the other to the top. I don't know if it's because I'm not keeping enough tension on the line when tightening or what.

Yeah, I'm pretty certain that I'm following the instructions correctly. I'm wondering if the problem is one of hole size or thread size. Following the images, you pass the right needle over the left thread, and then cast the left thread over the right needle. So on the left side of the material, the left thread is over the right thread and on the right side of the material, the right thread is over the left thread. I believe this is what ensures that you get the zig-zag on both sides. But when I pull it tight, this configuration doesn't stay and the left thread ends up over top of the right thread on both sides, giving me a zig-zag only on the left side. It's like there's not enough thread thickness or too large of a hole to hold that swapped position above in place.

Thanks for the link. I tried it, and now the back is slanted and the front is a straight line :-)

So I recently got a diamond pricking iron in order to get that nice zig-zag pattern in my hand stitching and I've watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0EL7K2NhYs as well as the often-cited Nigel video on how to do saddle stitching but I have two problems to which I can't figure out the cause. The first problem is that I'm only getting that nice zig-zag diamond pattern on one side of the leather (in my case the front side), while the other side is more or less a straight line (see attached photos). The other issue is that, on the back side, the first stitch is always dropped relative to the rest of the line. Something tells me that if I fix the first issue, the second one will take care of itself, but I can't seem to get it to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.