Wowndeye

Excellent! I got my top and sides cut and getting ready to lay out for the holes! The Tandy Lacing book is great but I was anticipating it to be a little struggle at first but hopefully I'll find a groove. I'll be sure and post pictures when I'm done. Thank you again!

Alright... So I got the black dye, Resolene, calf lacing and the lacing book from Tandy! Guess I should have scanned the book first because I ended up getting 3/32" lacing instead of 1/8". Will 3/32" work okay or should I exchange it? If I stick with the 3/32", should I punch a 3/32" hole or can I make it 5/64" (smallest hole my punch has)? I just don't want the foam to show through the holes because of the contrast, black leather over light blue foam. When it comes to the holes for lacing, how close should they be to the edge and how far apart from each other? I'll be using my rotary punch for the holes. When it comes to applying the dye and Resolene, do I get each piece cut to fit, holes punched and then dye followed by the Resolene before assembly? Or do I dye, assemble it all and then apply the Resolene? Thank you again both for the help and suggestions. I definitely want to try the Mexican Braid!

Wow cjartist, that stool is perfect! A little more than what I'm looking to do, but the top and bottom connected by the lacing is exactly what I was envisioning. Thank you for the picture because I hadn't found anything like that! Based on what I'm seeing from the stool there, it looks like the top was cut to the same dimension as the foam cushion and then the holes held back about a 1/4" inch from the edge of the leather? The foam looks a little compressed underneath which is fine with me. And then does the bottom piece just run underneath the top at a 90 degree angle? Are those the same lacing patterns in both pictures? Round/Mexican? Would punching round holes be the way to go or would using a stitching chisel? When I was first looking at getting started with this, the store I had visited didn't have any standard 5/32" lacing (the lace I had chosen) chisels except for a 3 prong Buckstitch one. I wasn't sure what I was buying and after looking at what is mostly done with the Buckstitch, I'm not really interested in it. I do have a hole puncher as well. I looked up the Resolene and it sound like just what I need. I'm debating on using olive oil to just tint the leather with a few coats and leaving it with a more "natural" color (that's what I had done for my knife sheath), or just going all black again. I noticed that they had two options, black and natural for the Resolene. Would it be best to use the black Resolene if I dye the whole seat black or would natural work for black or natural coloring? Thank you again so much!

Also, would the veg-tanned leather be okay for the seat top? I had read that applying neatsfoot oil would help soften it a little. Another desired outcome would be a finish on the leather that is a little "grippy". I am on the stool often and use my feet to move around a lot. Even though the carpet in my office is commercial, it has a felt pad underneath and the casters sometimes settle in place if I haven't moved in a minute or so. When I try using my legs to move myself around, because the casters are "embedded", it will make moving challenging at first and the current material allows me to start slipping off which I'm not real excited about! So any additional suggestions for that?

Thanks Chris! If I'm not sure I like the options suggested, I'll do that. Thanks Wig! I just looked up chrome oil tan because I hadn't heard of it. I always wondered what made the difference between veg-tanned leather and the softer ones out there. I had just figured it was some sort of conditioning. I'm not a big fan of fringe and would like to keep the sides solid. Thanks for the math tips on determining cut sizes. That's awesome! So the piece of foam I had made is 15" in diameter and 2.5" thick. Would I keep the 15.5" as you suggested, leaving .5" for sewing the seam? (I looked closer at the specs on the Perch link and I guess mine is just a little different from that one in dimensions.

To start, I'm extremely new to leather work and the only project I have under my belt is a small knife sheath that despite a couple design flaws, turned out pretty good. I'm trying to step it up a notch here and make a new cover for a rolling stool I have. It was originally covered in maybe a vinyl or pleather product that has started cracking around the perimeter and is looking like garbage. So I took the opportunity and got a higher grade polyurethane foam for the cushion and got a piece of 4/5oz veg tanned leather that I wanted to use for the cover and sides. I've done a lot of searching for options but haven't found what I'm looking for which is making me wonder if it's really an option. To my question... What I was hoping to do was cut out the circle for the top and then make two 4" strips that will be laced together to form the border that wraps around the circumference of the cushion which will be wrapped under the bottom and stapled. My issue is with how to connect the top to the border. My thought was to cut the top just proud of the foam and then butt the border up from underneath and use some sort of lacing pattern to tie them together. All the stitches I've seen on YouTube and other pictures so far don't seem like they would fit the bill. I wanted something at least slightly decorative instead of sewing them together inside out and then inverting(?) them around the cushion to completely hide any stitching or lacing. Again, I couldn't find any examples of what I was imagining and was hoping I could get a little direction. I hope that description is clear enough. Here's a link to the stool if that helps: https://www.perchchairsandstools.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=PLLF-P&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cse&utm_term=PLLF-P&gclid=CLeB-OS3m9ICFZBafgod8uAI1w Let me know if I can clarify anything and thanks in advance. If there are any other suggestions for a different approach, I am totally open to that!