Kattegat

Wow, thanks so much for all the help--you all are the greatest. You have given me the confidence to give it a shot! I think I'll pay one more visit to Tandy for some stain, cut some new side pieces, and try your techniques. I've got plenty of extra leather to work on to get it right. I think I'll wait to punch the holes until I get the color right this time! I'm not Danish, but I have a Danish friend. He gave me a pillow map of Denmark once, including, of course, the Kattegat. When I was signing up for another forum one day, Kattegat just struck me as kind of a cool variation on my usual name, which is some form of Katie. So now I'm Kattegat. I'd love to see that part of the world someday.

Hello, leatherworkers-- What a great site. I am a brand new convert to the craft and have just finished tooling all the parts on a Tandy purse kit. Now I am petrified about putting finish on it. I've dyed the little background parts brown, but for the rest, I want the leather to be just a nice light to medium tan, like the purse in the picture on the front of the kit (Revival is the name). Not raw veg tan color. I thought just oiling it would do, so I proceeded to ruin the non-tooled pieces of the kit with some pathetic attempts at applying neatsfoot oil. It's either blotchy (especially when I stupidly put oil down the pre-punched holes) or streaky or too dark or not dark enough. I don't want to ruin the tooled parts too and have to discard all my hard work. I had my best "success" with one of those sheepskin daubers, but it wasn't great. And even when I can get it to go on semi-smoothly, I can't get the colors to match from piece to piece. Could anyone please offer a scared newbie some advice? Thanks in advance!