flux41

I picked up a new smartphone a little while back, so I needed to make another case. Relatively proud of this one as I tried a couple new techniques on this one that I'll be using in my future work. Critiques welcomed!

Disclamer: I have only been doing leather work as a hobby for about 9 Months, so take my words with a grain of salt. I've been using good old 91% Isopropyl alcohol for diluting as I always have a ton of that stuff around here. I always dilute my spirit dyes at least 50%. Usually the ratios are more like 1-2 or 1-4 dye to alcohol. These days, I try to be somewhat methodical with how I work with dyes. I write down exactly what I did to get what color on what item, and with what leather. Every hide of leather is different, so you should always want to try out whatever you're doing on a small piece first. From talking with several people, everyone seems to have their own way of doing these things. Not sure if any particular way is "right". Usually the advice that most people have given me, is find something that works for me to get the look I want and just keep doing that.

Thanks for the suggestion! Will do!

Finished my first bi-fold wallet today! I used some Llama leather that I found on sale earlier this year. Opinions on improvements for next time would be appreciated! Thanks!

Lately I've been trying to work on my stitching. Considering I just received a new English Paring knife, I figured I would make a small little sheath for it. I should have designed it differently but it was a good chance to practice my stitching. Thank you to Nigel Armitage (@Dangerous Beans) for his videos on saddle stitching! Slowly but surely, I'm getting better!

@boriqua I avoid it by forming the case to the phone; instead of just making a pocket. So it's still snug, but it's not applying a enough amount of pressure to depress the buttons. It also loosens up after a bit of use.

@thekid77: I used a 2mm craftool diamond chisel (the only one I have), which I believe comes out at ~7 stiches per inch. As far as dye, I had some diluted down Fiebings British Tan and Mahogany, did a couple coats of the Brit Tan and then a couple with the Mahogany until it got to a reddish honey color. After that I used a little neatsfoot oil to richen up the color and darken it a touch. @LederRudi: Thanks. I do wonder about this case’s ability to protect the top of the phone. Yours seems like it would do much better at that. Also, I’m a bit jealous that you can do stamping. I can’t seem to do that to save my life. lol

Relatively new here. I've spent a lot of time reading this forum over the past few months and have been experimenting on a number of projects. Anyhow, I finally got around to making myself a new smartphone case so I thought I would show the results. I tried a bit of a different route this time and did light coats of multiple dyes to get the color I was aiming for. Critiques very much appreciated!