New To Leather And The Forum

[caseroni]

Hello!

I am Case from Colorado! I am very very new to leatherwork. Just attended a class last Saturday on leather tooling and now I am hooked. Not sure what direction I plan to go with it. I also make purses and bags out of fabric but want to make them out of leather. So, maybe I will somehow integrate sewing and tooling. Anyway, I posted a picture of my 3rd shot at a little practice scrap with a template I found on the Tandy website. Thanks for approving my membership, here and I hope to get to know you all better!

Case

[BillB]

Case,

Welcome to the Forum. There are lots of friendly folks around here to will help answer any questions you might have. I think you will also find that there are lots of different ways leather can be used for: purses, saddles, masks, leather armor, 2-D and 3-D Pictures. Look around, talk to folks, join in the conversations when you want to. The free coffee and donuts are down the main hall and at the corner.

There is a section on sewing in the Fabrication area. Not sure what type of machine you currently have, but I recommend you use a couple of scrape pieces of leather to simulate the thickness and layers you would sew and try your machine on it first. I tried to use a cloth sewing machine once and went and got me a leather sewing machine.

You practice piece looks pretty good. Keep it up and yes we do like pictures.

Again, Welcome to the Forum

BillB

[jbird]

Great Start!

Digg in and remember its all for the love of it. So have fun.

[caseroni]

Thanks for the welcome!

On sewing, I have a Kenmore sewing machine. Nothing fancy at all. It works fine for cloth, but it will only sew through thin leather with a leather needle. I haven't decided on the types of bags I want to make, but I sure don't have the dough to drop on a nice heavy duty leather machine. I wish I did, though. I'll take a look around the sewing forum, though and perhaps I will learn what it will take, machine-wise to get going.

I finally did my first tooling project and it doesn't look as good as I would like, but it was really my 4th shot at leather tooling, I guess. We are our own worst critics, I suppose. This one was a wallet kit I made for my husband from Tandy. I want to move toward doing custom work, but I am sure I have a long road! Anyway, it is lots of fun, and I look forward to gaining and improving skills.

I spent many years drawing and painting with oils and acrylics and switching media is a challenge, but I am up for it. A few months ago I started doing these charcoal rodeo/western drawings. I posted one of those, even though it is not really leather related.

And here is the wallet. I haven't really figured out the staining yet. I think I need to put some kind of layer of varnish(terminology?) on top but I really don't want it to be shiny. Any help is appreciated.

[caseroni]

I just put an avatar on my profile and I didn't realize how big my face would be. Haha. I might have to work on that.

[King's X]

Hey Case, we are happy you join us. Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your pictures.

[pete]

First off- welcome to the forum. You are miles ahead of me and MANY others here when it comes to art. WOW! Great drawing!

The wallet is a very nice job, you will only get better the more you do it. You have the artistic skills already down- just a matter of getting the knife skills down,

AND DON'T APOLOGIZE FOR THE AVATAR! What a pleasure to see a beautiful young lady instead of some of the pictures that we post! (ok- mines goofy too cause I'm to homely to put my own mug up here!)

Please post more as you go. And don't hesitate to post some of your work that we might like to copy and carve!! Myself- I'm always looking for original work to turn into a wallet, binder, album, etc.

pete

[caseroni]

Thank you! You are all so welcoming here!

This drawing might be better for carving.