Bonecross

I had not actually planned a second installment lol. Basically once you are done tooling and dyeing as usual, you stick the threads into the holes you punched into the background layer and tie a knot That's it, finito! Concealed stitches! Tip: You may want to add more stitch points than I showed... Depends on the project. Here is another one I made today, after it's base coat of green dye. I plan to make many of these and pick the top 5 but for now I am playing with the technique

I've done it cold and it worked, the rubbing action sort of melts it. So heating is not necessary, rub it in good with your fingers

Resolene or rub in beeswax!

I re-read Al Stohlman's description of the technique until it made sense and decided to make a walkthrough for this thread with a small project I have a project which involves small tooled dragons and I really do not want to have to pierce them with thread and ruin them...So what I want to do is use the Concealed Appliqué Stich. Here is a prototype: First step is to grab a piece of 8oz leather and make rough lines for the dragon. Then take a piece of thinner leather (I used 2oz) to act as a "plug" and make it slightly smaller than the shape of the dragon carving: We then flip our 8oz thick dragon over and carve the backside so that the plug fits into it (I used a variety of edging tools): Yaya it's fairly flush Position the Dragon and plug over the leather that will be used as the background (that you will stitch to), and make thread holes to properly support the piece through both plug and background layers: Use a needle to pass the thread through the holes in the plug. Leave 4-5 inches of thread ends. You can clean it up with a rubber band or something to make it manageable: Now contact cement the plug into the hole your carved into the back of the piece: Looking good after some flattening Now I prepare it by applying shelf liner to the back then leave some weight on it to keep it flat overnight. Tomorrow I will continue with the tooling stage and finish trimming it all nice...

It seems like this technique is only mentioned once and then nothing! One of those lost techniques?

I was re-reading Al Stohlman's 1977 book "The Art of Hand Sewing leather" and on pages 54/55 he describes a technique called "Concealed Appliqué Stitch", which he uses to mount horse heads on a saddle. Has anyone tried this technique? Any other examples out there (which is quite vague in the book)? I'd like to know more about how this works exactly for an upcoming project...