Sunflower Wallet

[GrampaJoel]

18 hours ago, mikesherman said:

So here are the pics of the sunflower wallet in it's final form (unfinished, sad story to follow.)

Sadly, this is as far as I will go with this design, as it has some fatal flaws. No sense in throwing more time and materials at it...

First off, the horizontal lazy pockets are super awkward and create a huge amount of bulk in the wallet. They also cause the cards to stack up in a way that I can only image will actually damage the cards. No bueno.

Second, the outer stitch line for the pocket nearest the wrap around closure would project straight thru the tooling area. Lining the wallet would solve this problem, as the wallet at that end could be stitched to the lining; but, lining increases the bulk of the wallet. I'm trying to avoid bulking up wallets with extra unnecessary material. I could also reduce the tooling area, but I really like the idea of being able to cover the entire shell with contiguous tooling. Not a deal breaker though, so if I can work out the pockets problem I'll revisit this issue.

I also learned that however carefully I cut, it never seems to be quite precise enough. I'll have to learn to leave some ease at the edges and trim everything down later, but this approach introduces some other challenges that I'll have to work out...namely, how to place stitch lines, hardware and tooling windows accurately if I don't actually know where the edges of the project are?

Regardless, I learned a lot from this experience, and I still enjoyed cutting up some leather and trying to turn it into something beautiful. Thank you to everyone for taking a look. If anyone has some ideas as to how I might work out these problems, I'm all ears!

Thanks much - Mike

 

 

I would suggest that you might save your wallet by pulling the pockets and re-doing them. Forgive my finger drawing. But maybe it will help.

you might try using a thin leather, and instead of four pieces of leather, use just two.
Folding them in half will give you the pockets.

using a double sided tape on the folded pocket on the snap area/side would close the long side. Then all you would need to stitch would be the ends, and the wallet would be usable.

 

[chuck123wapati]

1 hour ago, GrampaJoel said:

I would suggest that you might save your wallet by pulling the pockets and re-doing them. Forgive my finger drawing. But maybe it will help.

you might try using a thin leather, and instead of four pieces of leather, use just two.
Folding them in half will give you the pockets.

using a double sided tape on the folded pocket on the snap area/side would close the long side. Then all you would need to stitch would be the ends, and the wallet would be usable.

 

I think that's an end around on the weak side. 

[Handstitched]

On 3/24/2023 at 7:01 AM, mikesherman said:

Sadly, this is as far as I will go with this design, as it has some fatal flaws. No sense in throwing more time and materials at it...

We've all been there...done that. I've even thrown my  projects across the workshop after I've made a boo boo...or 2 or 3 or 4   Just re-do the interior, apart from that, it looks great. The basket weave is very well done and a nice rich colour too  

HS

[mikesherman]

GrampaJoel - I'm still trying to wrap my head around the diagram...but I am considering tearing off the pockets and using an earlier, working design for wallet guts...I'm pretty committed to using veg tan for the guts on this project, and this 3 oz is the thinnest I've got for now.

chuck123wapati - LMAO, seriously...
Handstitched - I'm thinkin on it...Thank you for the kind words!

Edited March 31, 2023 by mikesherman
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