Mikewhy

As you look at the edge, do you see the scratches from your stone as you sharpen? As you progress through finer grits, is your edge becoming more and more polished? Are the deeper scratches from the coarser grits completely obliterated at each step? At each step, are you able to raise a burr the length of the edge? At the finest grit, are you getting a mirror polish the full width of the edge? I make my own knives from lathe parting tools, M2 HSS. I sharpen the width of the parting tool. I form the bevel on an 8" bench grinder. A belt sander or (best) belt grinder would work just as well. I sharpen on wet/dry paper on a granite plate, 220 grit, 320, 400, 600. A few strokes on the strop with green paste puts a mirror polish on the edge, and also at the top of the hollow grind. If you started with a belt grinder, the whole bevel will be a flat mirror. My first effort took literally about a half hour from start to finish. Most of that was on the grinder and the 220 grit to shape and clean up the bevel. Successively finer grits take progressively shorter, ending with about 20 strokes a side on the 600 grit. I then strop until each stroke on the strop raises a full length burr. When it takes more than about a minute to strop up the burr, I put it on the 600 paper again. Sometimes, clumsy handling makes clean up with coarser grits necessary.Except for deep dings, this too goes very fast. Learn to sharpen straight edged tools first, chisels or wood planes, for example. Everything else will come easy once you learn to polish a mirror onto that edge.

Nah. Your stitching looks fine. The only way to see the slight, and I mean really tiny, misalignment in the hind stitches is to stare at them fixatingly as only we do here. I do take some issue with the awl technique, but perhaps not in the way you might think. All this attention to forcing the threads apart is working a bit too well, in my opinion. In your pics, the awl gash on the front is huge, There's little to be done about it. That's just what the tools we use do. The end result is as you see it: gaps between each stitch. The long gash is at least a third to half the pitch distance, making the little bit of thread showing look chunky, to borrow a word. I went along with everyone else, too, taking the ride on Nigel's words and advice. Long story short, my stitching looked like your photos: all gaps and stumpy looking threads. I hated it, gave up, and went back to stitching in an edge crease. That is not to say I didn't get anything from the exercise. It's just the opposite. The deep focus and re-think on fundamentals cleaned up my bad habits and, with help, I "discovered" Tiger thread. As a suggestion only, just to see if it's moving you in the right direction, try stitching a row in a groove. Use 0.8mm Tiger, 7 or 8 stitches to the inch. Sew the row as Nigel teaches it, wrapping the front thread over to put the needle through the loop. The groove helps to fight the tendency to gap, even if the awl mark is a bit wide. What you should get is pleasingly proportioned stitches, each stitch touching the next, and the ribbon-like thread pinching nicely at the ends to make a pleasant eye shape. I would post a picture, but my gear and lighting aren't of the same class as yours. I think it's the eye shape more so than simply the induced slant that makes it say "hand sewn saddle stitch."

Hello Sticks. The idea is for the first needle to follow the awl as it is withdrawn. This is less important when both sides of the work are readily visible, as when held upright and centered in Nigel's stitching clamp or American-style ponies. With the Continental-style stitching clam shown here, the back side is hidden underneath and behind the work. Visibility to the back side is blocked, so finding the awl with the needle tip helps it hit the hole. Al Stohlman also writes in his leather sewing book about this technique. There, he discusses briefly the difficulty of sewing through the wool nap of lambskin. Ian does something similar -- I'm pretty sure it was he -- by inserting the second needle before completely pulling the first needle through.

I'm fresh out of knock-knock jokes.

I wonder if vacuum bagging won't work. The mess would at least be better contained.