Sheilajeanne

That's the same design we used for our project. Looking at it, I can see the lifter was Craftool B60, not U851, which is a mulefoot stamp. There are some nice designs there! Three of those flowers are provincial emblems for Canada: the trillum (Ontario) the dogwood (B.C.) and the wild rose (Alberta). Think I'm going to download that sheet!

When I took the basic leather crafting course at Tandy, a maple leaf coaster was one of our projects. The only tool that wasn't in the basic kit was a petal lifter (U 851). Here's the pattern we used: Let me know if you can download it okay. If not, I will scan it as a .jpg file. The arrows point to where the petal lifter was needed. Our instructor let us borrow one for the project. Everything else was just basic cutting and beveling and a bit of pear shading! Edit: oops, there are no arrows on the diagram. The lifter was used in 4 spots, at the deepest part of the lobes of the leaf. If the leaf were a clock, that would be at 2, 4, 8 and 10. Here's the finished product. However, this was not my first effort! maple leaf .pdf

Well this sounds pretty good. Let's see what it produces going forward. Yes, I can't help but be a little skeptical! But on the other hand, my experience with Tandy has been more positive than negative. Again, I have to credit my mentor, Bill (God rest his soul!) with being far more interested in teaching his students than pushing Tandy's products.

I learned something new this morning: tr.v. tawed, taw·ing, taws. To convert (an animal hide) into white leather by treating it with a mixture containing alum and salt. [Middle English tawen, from Old English tawian, to prepare.] taw′er n. Since I didn't know this type of leather even existed until just now, I have no help to offer. Just putting this up here for others who are wondering what the heck 'alum tawed' leather is!

My basic leathercraft kit came with a wooden mallet. It was the ONLY thing it the kit that was pretty much worthless. It was just not heavy enough to make a good stamping impression. I soon replaced it with a medium weight polyethylene mallet and have used that ever since.

Many of my family are or were farmers at one time. I'm sure every dang one of them can tell you a machinery horror story that will curl your hair! Worst one I can think of was when one of my uncles let his teen son stand on the back of the tractor as it was pulling a disc harrow. It was only going to be for a short distance, so he thought it would be okay. He fell off and was run over by the harrow. He survived and still has all his body parts, but he was on crutches for a very long time!

Okay, I've fixed it! Funny, I thought if you reset the size for one website, all of them would be affected! Apparently that's not so, and I somehow accidentally reset this site to 80% of normal!

So, all of a sudden the type face on the site has shrunk to about half its normal size! I can barely read it! The ads still look as they normally do, but everything else has SHRUNK! And no it's NOT my computer! Other websites I visit are okay!

True story: guy manages to run over his foot with a lawn mower. When he goes to Emerg, he finds a cousin of his is on duty. The cousin asks to see the injury. After looking at it, the injured party asks "So, what do you think?" The cousin replies, "Well, I think your lawn mower blade needs sharpening. You've still got all your toes!"

Indeed! I play guitar, so I appreciate just how much even something like stabbing yourself with an awl or a needle can affect your playing ability!

Jazz, with your other hobby being so reliant on intact fingers, PLEASE be careful!!

My mother did an awful lot of peeling when she was keeping house for a family of four, and the blade of her peeler was razor sharp from use. One night, it slipped while she was peeling potatoes, and removed a sizable piece of her left pinkie! She bandaged it up, finished preparing dinner, and we all stat down and ate supper before she made a trip to Emergency to get it re-attached! I am still kicking myself for pooh-poohing the injury, ungrateful teenager that I was. I really though she was being overdramatic! There are times when parents are unsung heroes!

Chrisah, please note the original post is more than a year old!

If you are seeing halos around lights, get your opthalmologist to check you out. Could be the beginning of cataracts!

Tried to catch a box cutter knife I dropped once. ONLY once. Have a permanent split in my right thumb nail after damaging the thumb nail bed when a knife slipped (yes, I'm left-handed). But the best story of all is the one about the guy who decided to test the sharpness of a round knife with his thumb. I disremember who the owner of the round knife was, but he's on this board, so maybe he'll chime in! Yes, numerous stitches were involved!

I find I need to adjust my guitar strap depending on whether I am playing standing or sitting, so adjustable isn't a bad idea! Very nice piece of work!

AWESOME! Curious to know about the construction. What is underneath the scales? Boiled leather? Or just heavy weight hide?

Need to bleach my eyes after seeing that one! It just goes to show that even very well known actors can make mistakes in their choices of roles! AB, amazing work, as always!

Thanks, Ferg. Hey, your leather room had a lot of machines in it, but you could get around and it was well organized! You know my biggest problem right now? This century home is so small, I am running out of places to put the moving boxes! I don't want to start putting them in the basement because the stairs are so hard to negotiate (narrow, uneven, and you have to duck your head.) The garage isn't safe either as water leaks under the foundation on the west side, and the only upstairs to the house are the two bedrooms and 'powder room', which are already chock a block with furniture! Century homes had REALLY small bedrooms, and no closet space, so by the time you put a bed, a dresser, night table AND a wardrobe on the room, there's hardly any space left! Well, the old place needs some work done before it goes on the market, so I can get it cleaned out at my leisure. It will be more marketable with some of the furniture gone.

Yin Tix, that's something that worries me, too! The former owner passed away at age 96. A friend of mine lives across the road from her, and tells me her children filled 4 dumpsters with her stuff when cleaning her house out. This doesn't count the stuff they sold at two yard sales, or took home with them! I don't want to leave that sort of problem for MY executors!

In case you haven't noticed, most stringed instruments in the orchestra don't have frets! Violins, cellos and of course, bass fiddles!

And in case you've forgotten, here is my current tiny, perfect work station! It shares the room with my desk, a file cabinet, washer, dryer, large dog crate, a large library of books and my Seiko sewing machine!

The purple room is the basement bedroom just across from the craft room. I could shoot the person who put the shelves up BEFORE finishing the wall. Yes, they are VERY firmly attached to the wall with many screws! The room with the red door at the end is another room adjacent to the bedrooms and the craft room. The red door at the end is the entrance to a cold cellar. In addition to this, there is another unfinished room on the other side of the basement that is completely lined with shelves!! Also, one half of the garage has been turned into a heated, insulated area where the previous owner had her pottery kiln. I imagine working with clay creates too much dust for it to be done inside the house. Even the smoke alarm in that room is protected by a dust cover!

Left side of craft room Cupboard at one end of craft room

On December 3rd, if there are no last minute hitches, I will take possession of a new house. The former owner was a very crafty lady, and did sewing, stained glass and pottery. There is an entire room in the basement that was devoted to sewing, and this is going to be my new leather working room! Here's some pics: Okay, need to resize them so I can post more than one at a time! This is the right side of the room.