DJole

That's a nice red on the owl piece -- what was the dye used? Is that 100% strength?

Or, you could just not do any basketweaving patterns... I hear you about the expense, but you realize that you don't really need ALL the toys to make it work! (Ian Atkinson has a lovely video where he points out what you can do with minimum investment -- find it here--> http://ianatkinson.net/leather/videos.htm For a long time, I got by with an Xacto knife, one modeling spoon, an awl, and thread. Nothing else other than dyes and thread. Talk about cheap (except for the leather, of course!) As time went by, I started adding tools, one, two at a time, as I realized I needed them to do certain things (like skiving and edge beveling). And one doesn't need many of the specialized modelling tools -- I used one beveler for a long time, till I realized that a certain design needed a smaller beveller. I recently picked up some under-cut bevellers on sale, and so now I have 2 smooth bevellers, 1 patterned cross-hatch beveller, and 2 undercut bevellers. This is all spread over 10 years, mind you. I only recently picked up a Camoflauge tool -- I don't do floral tooling, which is where that's mostly used, but the sale price was right. Only one basketweaving tool, though, which I rarely ever use... It just doesn't match the style of the things or designs I do. I myself don't have an angle grinder, but I bet I can find a friend who does have one-- if, of course, I wanted to grind a tool. A machine that will sew leather--that's something I'm not sure any of my friends has! Maybe one day, if I really needed to crank out stuff, I could save up for one. But for now, hand stitching is still what I do. It certainly isn't for the faint of heart and the unsure of hand! One slip with the knife, and WHOOPS..

I've done a bit of hand-carved basketweave in the past. Doing it by hand probably takes just as much as planning, placing, and time as using the basketweave tool. But the look is certainly different, as immiketoo states. (This makes me wonder just where that piece with the basketweave is located...hmm...did I give it away, or what?)

If you change the title of your post to be more specific (i.e. asking about machine advice instead of just setting up a workshop) you should more quickly get the attention of the sewing machine experts of the forum. While you wait for their input -- have you searched the forum for posts about flat bed. vs. cylinder or post? I bet this topic has been addressed at least once in the past, and perhaps the thread discussions will give you good information.

I see you live in Norway -- my family emigrated from Aurdal, in the Valdres region, in the 1840s. I have a distant cousin who lives next door to the farm my ancestors left! Sadly, I have not managed to visit Norway yet.

Wow! That's...mighty pink, all right! I don't remember my oxblood dyes looking like that! Here's the oxblood of my wallet: That's full strength, not diluted. This is Fiebings Oxblood-- Angelus makes an oxblood too, which you can see here in this other piece (the boar's tongue):

Angelus produces some pink dyes: Rose and Light Rose. Maybe those will work for you.

Isn't it great to show off a project that you have completed...or at least nearly completed? I like the border design on the 2nd piece, using three stamps in a new way.

That's really nice! the face is really a striking design. Did you use a mold for that?

Dye colors can be tricky. . Different hides take dye colors differently, so testing the dye out on a scrap taken from the same hide as the project is a good idea. I have a Fiebing's red dye, but it never ends up purple like this. Maybe Angelus red will work for you-- Angelus' own website: https://angelusdirect.com/collections/angelus-dye-1 An alternative source I use for Angelus dyes, through Dharma Trading: https://www.dharmatrading.com/dyes/angelus-leather-dyes.html On the above websites, I find that the Dharma Trading on-screen color examples are more accurate than Angelus' own website. Angelus makes a few shades of red: red, oxblood, winetone, burgundy, rose, light rose, russet, brick, brandy. Maybe one of these will work for you. As far as the applicators go, the wool daube r applicators should work fine for large surfaces, as long as you remember the basics: swirl it on with circular overlapping motions, making sure you don't miss any spots. Then let it fully dry before deciding if you need another coat. Is this what you are doing, yet you aren't happy with the results? I rarely use the daubers-- I just prefer using a variety of paintbrushes (especially since a lot of my work involves multiple colors on tooled designs). I use a paintbrush to apply resist (Eco-shene, and so on) onto designs (like the letters on your sample photograph.) Here's what I do with my paintbrush: That's Angelus yellow, Angelus oxblood, and (much to my surprise) Fiebeing's white, which is notoriously unreliable.

Is the "natural" color the "off-white" you are looking for, or something actually named off white? Maybe Royalwood, Ltd. has what you need. They sell basket weaving supplies, which includes waxed linen thread. Website (direct link to the waxed linen thread page): https://www.royalwoodltd.com/cat14-17ar.htm Royalwood Ltd. 517 Woodville Rd. Mansfield, Ohio 44907 Phone: 1-800-526-1630 Their page lists color selections for 2 ply thread up through 4, 7 and 12 ply. I have bought some waxed Irish linen thread from them in the past, for hand stitching, and it's good stuff. Great colors and strong thread.

Looking good! I must say that my heart almost stopped at the beginning of the video when you laid your first pattern piece onto the MIDDLE of the designer leather piece! But then you used the rest of the leather, so I relaxed.

Well, first you need to figure out what kind of thing you'll be doing, so you can know if you need tooling leather, or harness leather, or leather for shoes or bags. I did a quick Google search and found some businesses out in your part of the state that might help you out. Give people like this a call, and find out where they get their leather, or if you can get leather from them: Judd Miller Custom Saddlery 19350 Balis Rd, Red Bluff, CA 96080 (530) 529-6615 I see the previous poster has already recommended the Hide House for you. It's further than Sacramento, but here's the full contact info: The Hide House Quality Leather & Hides For All Industries Po Box 509, Napa, CA 94559 (888) 849-2816 I don't know either of these businesses, nor have I used them for supplies (and I don't get money by advertising for them, either!)

Are they going to go 4-wheeling, getting stuck in bogs and mudholes and streams with that gorgeous tooling on their seats?! Brave souls!

Sporrans are born, not made?! Seriously, though, the attention to detail there is very good. I greatly enjoyed looking at all the pieces in progress, and then the final product.

I like the dimensionality, the tactile surfaces. It's really low-relief sculpture. A 2d drawing is nice, but it's flat. Good tooling just begs to be touched.

I'm sure our sewing machine experts will be along to take a look, but in the meantime, you could help them out by giving some information: 1) What machine are you using? 2) what kind of leather, and what thickness? 3) What kind of thread, and what thickness?

Ah, a question that I spent years in graduate school discussing! ;-) Let me throw my 10 cents into the ring.. The word "craft" really has the same root as the word "art" (from "artifice," or something created.) Over time the notion of "craft" has been relegated to 2nd or 3rd place to the notion of "art," which has come to mean fine art. People have basically three overlapping cultures: folk culture, popular culture, and elite culture. Here is how they are different: Folk culture is traditional over time and space, passed down usually in an oral context in small, face to face group situations. Learning how to play the guitar from listening to Uncle George's playing in the kitchen is likely folk culture. Popular culture is mediated, meaning that it's passed down via mass media. Listening to a recording of George Harrison, and watching him play on TV, as you try to replicate what you hear and see, is pop culture. Elite culture is taught in formal instruction, and considered the "best." Studying guitar in school under a teacher's instruction, learning guitar tab, and playing in "art" concerts is elite culture. A traditional song, like a Blues piece, or a fiddle tune, can originate in a live setting or folk culture. But then it gets recorded by Bob Dylan, and played on the radio to millions of people outside of the original live culture, and now it's popular culture. You can then learn the song from listening to the record, and then somebody else may learn it from you and it could be folk or elite, depending on the situation. Art is slippery! The only actual difference is the amount of money people will pay for a "fine art" object, which is basically an object that is useless for anything other than some expression of an idea. Paintings and sculpture are considered fine art. There is also "art music." Then there is popular art, usually mass produced (like movies, or art prints or posters). So... what about leatherwork? When does it become art or artistic? Well, artistic means that there is another layer of meaning in the aesthetic qualities. Think of a saddle -- that can be a finely made saddle, but was the creator adding on non-functional aspects to express delight, or culture, or some other idea? A craftsman can say that's a well made saddle -- good stitching, good design, and so on. But it's not really "artistic" yet. If the saddle maker decides to add some decoration, by tooling (non-functional, really) or use dyes to change the color, then it becomes artistic -- there is something beyond the thing, another layer of meaning. Why add tooling or color except to delight the eye, or the touch? What if somebody made a fine-art saddle? Well, it would lose its saddle-ness. It would be a piece of art, resembling in shape but not likely to actually work well as a saddle. But it would certainly command a hefty price! And who would take a million dollar saddle out to work on the ranch? TL, DR: Yes, leather workers can be artists-- it's just that what they are doing is rarely fine art (there is some out there, but not much). For many of us, the pleasure is not just the concept or the aesthetic choices, but function is important. And above all, the tastes and demands of the audience -- are they making pieces for people who want fine art? Then it's fine art. Are they making pieces for people who want a holster that works well but also looks good? Then it's still art.

Try Ohio Travel Bag-- they have a selection of buckles and a lot more hardware: https://ohiotravelbag.com/ I have got some things from them in the past.

Great design, excellent execution. That's a real attention-grabber, there! It's too nice for a bedside valet -- it belongs in the front room.

I did a quick search, and discovered that Goyser welting goes by other names: "Norvegese, Norweigan, Goyser, Bentavenegna--These are all similar construction methods with small differences, but the problem is that different makers call things differently, so it’s very hard to define exactly what is correct." --<http://shoegazing.se/english/2015/08/15/guide-methods-of-shoe-construction/> Have you searched for these other terms to find the how-to you want?

I like seeing the Filipino-style designs. And that's some pretty good tooling there, even for a ham-handed amateur as you call yourself!

With a background in dressmaking and millinery, you already have a handle on patterns and 3 dimensional thinking. Welcome to the forum, and remember that most of us started like you did, so don't be afraid to show off your projects or ask for help when needed!

A typical veg-tan tooling belly is a strip about 5 feet by 6 inches (give or take, of course). Not all of it will be usable (holes, too stretchy, etc.) but if it's just to practice tooling on, or for small projects, then it will be fine. I recently found some thick veg-tan tooling bellies at Tandy for 10 dollars apiece, on sale. Four bellies came home with me, and I still have more than half the leather left to play with. Just in case you aren't familiar with the terms that describe hides (belly, shoulder, etc.), the diagram below will help: Tandy often has bags of scrap for sale (mixed veg tan and chrome tan), and Brettun's village up in Maine also sells scrap leather by the pound (but not tooling leather, I think --see this link for that part of their website).

If you are making this arm guard out of thick enough leather, perhaps you don't need metal eyelets or grommets at all, but just holes will work. If you are worried about cords pulling through the holes in the leather, maybe what I did here will work for you: This is a leather coat I wear over my fencing doublet. You can see from the folds that it is not a heavy leather. The leather was from a remnant of an upholstery hide, so it's like a thick cloth. But notice the oval pieces at the front seam. Those are reinforcement pieces for the leather ties, made from a thicker tooling leather. I have one oval piece on each of the overlap, with two holes in each, and the thongs come through that leather, so the ties pull on the thick leather rather than the thinner hide. If you were to do something similar for your bracers, the leather is only one one side (the outer side), so there would be nothing sticking out on flesh side to irritate the person's arm, like what might happen with a grommet. A grommet may get hot in the sun, or corroded over time by sweat, rain, etc. and need to be replaced. These leather "grommets" can also be replaced-- cut the stitches out and sew a new one on. I must admit that setting a series of grommets or eyelets will be much faster than all the stitching involved here!