Leerwerker

Was that hand stitched?

It hangs in my store and people handle it every day - I just treat it every six months or so with Dr Jackson's Hide Rejuvenator.

Here is the same purse yesterday: more than two years after I redid half the flowers in Eco Flow dyes:

Here is an interesting timeline: First Picture - June 2004 - I colored the florals on the purse with Fiebings spirit based dyes. Next three pictures - May 2007 - three years later - most red and green color faded, brown gusset still OK - I redo one half of the purse with Eco Flo water based dyes. Tomorrow I will add the picture I took today so that you can see what the purse looks like today after more than two years again ....

Doug, Come and visit me and I'll see if I can help ...

Hi everybody! I have a friend who has this old Tandy Kit and needs the instructions to know how it is put together. Can anybady please help us?!?

There is another element which might be part of a tunnel stitch. Someone once brought old tools for me to identify and two or three of them I had never seen before. These turned out to be channel tools - used to cut the grooves in soles so that the leather would close over the sewing. I found descriptions in The Dictionary of Leather-working Tools by RA Salaman.

Hi everybody, Well, a two projects came together on Saturday: I wore my hat with the special hat band for the Potjie [Dutch Oven] Day that a group of South Africans have here every year on the 4th July. And I presented the host and his wife with a photo album cover that I had tooled with a potjie on the front and the South African flag we lived under, on the back. Of course a short burst of rain made for desperate measures to keep the hat dry ....!

The stiffness from the dye is due to the dye sticking the leather fibers together - when the alcohol evaporates, the dye is like a glue between the fibers. Except the dye is not a permanent glue and those bonds can easily be broken just by bending the leather a few times. If you never manipulate the leather, it will remain stiff. So to wet form after dyeing, simply wet it and bend it a few times. In fact, mask makers in Italy teaches that you really have to bend and work the leather back and forth many times and get it as soft as velvet fabric, before you mold it into one of those Commedia del Arte masks. [Not necessary with holsters!]

Hi every body, I published a video instruction about doing the two tone dying on this new hat at http://sites.google.com/site/leatherlearn/

Ten thumbs up! I also like your choice of leather and that swanky wave of the brim!

Thank you very much Mike! That is a nice plain explanation from an expert! It all makes sense to me now. It does seem as if I am happier when I use more ambient natural light (not flash) - and then add a bit using Picasa or Gimp.

I have taken the following photographs with a digital camera - the one with the two hats was without flash and shows true coloring of the hats. As soon as you use flash, as with the other two pictures, it seems to pick up "deeper, hidden" coloring in the leather - like the one hat that now seems to be full of brown streaks . Any comments?!?

Ek is jaloers!

Big red flag! This guy better not let anybody see him sell the Neat Lac - he lives in California - totally illegal to sell it there or toi sell it to anybody living in California. Neatlac has a long shelf life, but that packaging has not been sold in the last ten years - I would be suspect.

I have a small tutorial at http://sites.google.com/site/leatherlearn/Home/fuzzies

Hi everybody! I added the pattern for the top hat to the webpage http://sites.google.com/site/leatherlearn/Home/tophat The pattern is half size, so if you want to make a hat to fit your head, put the pattern on a copier that can double the size for you.

I do not have one, but my friend do, and I had a good look at his a few weeks ago. I think it is a must, if you read a lot. The electronic paper is totally different from any computer screen. The eye-relaxing reading on the kindle makes it feel like you are staring into a laser pointer when you read on a normal computer screen again. The only reason I do not have one, is that I do not have a lot of time to sit and just read (I get more read in my car using Audio books). And I do not have the money for a Kindle ....

So I got some antiquing gel in a lot of supplies a few days ago and I want to try it on a project. However, I don't know how to apply it. I pour it on a dauber and smear it on .... Do I apply it on wet leather, dry, slightly damp? And do I use anything special for it such as a sponge, paper towel, cloth? Don't find too much of a difference between damp and dry leather - as long as you put it on liberally. And last but not least, the leather I'm using for the vambraces is already a brown kinda colour as is the antiquing gel. Will that cancel out the effect I'm after? No, it will still hightlight the tooling perfectly!

You can also google "I Marc Carlson" from Tulsa Oklahoma - excellent historical resources....

I AGREE!! We might be living just a few miles apart and would not even know it ! BUT: I am NOT going to tell you where I lovate ....!!

Hallis, and everybody else who uses Inkscape, Are there any quick and simply procedures/tricks that you know on Inkscape that I can add to the instructions? Is there a way for example, to have it detect edges automatically and turn them into a line drawing?

Hi there, I just finished a full tutorial for doing line drawings from photographs in the simplest possible way on your computer. BUT I really need feed back on this to make it complete - if there is something not clear, please let me know and I can fix it. To can find it at http://sites.google.com/site/leatherlearn/

If she has an email address there somewhere, please let her know that people cannot access her website - I would really like to see her work! If IE and Chrome cannot see her links, she is in trouble and may as well not have a website....