crazytailorlady

Hey guys, It took me about a week but I've made my first all-leather horse halter! I usually make rope halters but my sisters' pony needed one like this and I decided it might as well be my leatherwork practice. A little history, it is extremely difficult for me to obtain new leather for straps or anything due to where I live, however, my family has a long history of horses and we have loads of old tack and a lot of scrap leather pieces and straps that I've worked on repairing. This halter is made of such straps which is why I put doubles - it is cracky when bent too much. The noseband has an extra layer which is from a gorgeous but old piece of cow leather. I can't use it on its own but it adds for decorative effect due to color and I tested my stamp on it. Stitching is rough but I am trying to improve. The halter is a fit and the pony is happy with it. Apologies if this was too long of a read, here are the photos:

Hey all, I've been looking at a lot of custom-made and DIY stamp ideas and came up with some of my own. These are made from steel screws but I forgot to include a photo of them before I "edited" them. From tools is used a vice, a metal saw and a few metal files. The other photo is how the stamps look on leather. I am very proud of these since its my first time making them.

'Morning everyone, I hope I chose the right category for this. In my workshop there's this goat hide that's been standing there for nearly twenty years and nobody's touched it. By the look of it it didn't rot but I don't think it was treated much and it still has hair attached. Its not too bendy but not stiff either. I will post a picture later. Since I've been getting into leatherworking and since it is very hard for me to get a hold of new or unused leather for practice I have to stick to reusing old straps from broken horse tack and reviving some ancient leather my family got from some workshops. Is there anything anyone could recommend for me to do with this hide with as little resources possible? Anything to make it usable that I can do? As soon as I can I will post pictures so y'all can see what I'm dealing with here. Thanks in advance!

Very useful replies, cleared lots of confusion. Thank you!

Hello all, In the leather stitching projects I've done as practice I followed the method from Stohlman's book which says to backstitch two holes to finish the sewing. If I understood correctly, that means to sew back through the last two holes that I made? And will that be enough to secure the thread when sewing something that will suffer some tension, like a horse halter? Thanks in advance

Thank you! Its a 1950's (late, I think) Victoria. German vintage bike.

Hello from Serbia everyone, I'm crazytailorlady, I have been into traditional crafting for a long time now but quite recently took up leatherworking. I look forward to learning and perfecting the craft and people on here seem like the best to learn from. I am interested in hand-sewing and working by hand in general. I hope we'll all get along well. Oh, if someone is wondering about the username, its because my family has horses and I'm constantly making something they need like halters, polo wraps, reins and I spend a lot of time taking measurements. Once the horse got annoyed and I was joking like "The crazy tailor lady will leave soon, calm down." That stayed. All that it a sentence: Hi everyone, nice to be here!