Please Help Develop A Pattern

[Chavez]

Hi!

I've quickly drafted a wee pattern for a tooled dog collar and carved it on a scrap of leather just to see how it will look like (see pics attached).

My problem is that the tooling cannot be wider than 14-16mm as I need to leave some space for stitching, so the draft piece of leather in the picture is the same width as I will have between the stitching grooves once I start making the collar.

I would be grateful if you could advise me how to improve this pattern. Do you think I should shift some of these flowers, increase/reduce the distance between them? Reduce leaves overlap? Do you think I should background all the area, not just the places around flowers, but around the leaves too?

Another problem is that the collar will be 26 inches and this pattern is only 8 inches long. I don't mind leaving the rest of the collar untooled as long as the pattern fades in and out of it nicely, so if I was to background the whole area around the tooling I might have trouble with the rest of the whitespace.

Thank you for your help!

[Northmount]

I think it looks really nice. I did a pattern on a narrow belt a while ago and found it difficult because everything was so small. You can repeat your pattern as needed to fill the space you want to. (just need to do a little transition, like add a flower between the segments)

At each end of the pattern area, you could bring the side borders together in a semicircle. Then you know where to stop the backgrounding. If the background is matted, and you don't want a border, then taper the background off over about a half inch (12 mm).

I like what you have done. Someone is going to have a real nice collar.

CTG

Edited February 26, 2012 by northmount

[electrathon]

Go with just leaves, loose the flowers. Continue them the total length. It will make a simple and clean look.

Aaton

[Chavez]

Thanks!

I thought about just leaves before but then I think it will look too basic and would be better off without any carving. I just can't make a string of leaves look good enough =)

Maybe someone would share a pattern that would fit into 14mm?

[rosiart]

Thanks!

I thought about just leaves before but then I think it will look too basic and would be better off without any carving. I just can't make a string of leaves look good enough =)

Maybe someone would share a pattern that would fit into 14mm?

Rather than do all leaves, could you put the pet's name in the section that has the flowers?

[Chavez]

Ouch. Haven't tried letters yet=)

I take it the general feeling is that these cutoff flowers do not look good?

[Northmount]

1330294269[/url]' post='236270']

Ouch. Haven't tried letters yet=)

I take it the general feeling is that these cutoff flowers do not look good?

The one on the right looks good. The others are skewed too much.