First Wallet

[MisterMoad]

Hey everybody, I'm new to the forum and new to leatherworking, but here's my first attempt at a wallet. I'll keep posting as I make more progress. Let me know any ways you see I can improve. Thanks,

Johnny

[bluesman1951]

Hi Johnny , Welcome to leather . I cant comment on the tooling thats not my area of expertise . Just a couple of no big deal items with your stitching when making your holes you use a pricking punch . 5 points shaped like diamonds ,the one you used is for lacing . Happens to us all . Your edges need some slicking ,more rubbing and some elbow grease. You can leave them natural or dye them your choice . Point is needs just a bit more work . For a first project its just great ,it will work and wear well and you learned something . Each one gets better as time goes on . Thanks for sharing your work and I wish you good luck with your future projects . All my best Bill

[HellfireJack]

As above plus you should try to have a border for your tooling that is separate from your stitch line. It's not horrible that it isn't. It just gives a better look overall.

Your tooling looks OK. All the columns and rows appear to line up. I can see a couple of spots where you were off a bit.

[David8386]

Johnny, it looks pretty good for a first project, all the advice given above was correct. Angled basket weave stamping is one of the hardest ones to do IMO, and yours looks pretty good. Thanks for posting it

David

[TwinOaks]

Welcome to Leatherworker.net!

For a first project, your angled basket weave looks just fine. What stands out the most to me is that even lacking a border, you did a VERY good job of not running the legs of the basket stamp into the 'blank' area surrounding the pattern. I see a few here and there, but overall, you've correctly stamped it to avoid the little leg marks. I believe you still have room, if you want to tool on that anymore, to run a camouflage tool around the BW. The camo tool is the one that has the lines spread out like spokes...but really bunched up. One of the things it's useful for is going around the outside edges of a stamping pattern and filling in/cleaning up those little stray marks. That gives a nice visual termination of the pattern.

If I may suggest a few items for reading, I think it will better explain (and with pics) some of the things mentioned above:

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=20177 it's not the same stamping that you did, but the photos show how the camo tool is used.

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=18101 This is an excellent guide for edge work.

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=12259 a written description of hand sewing

There are, of course, more threads full of advice, opinions on what's best, etc. These are just some of the more useful ones to get you started. As Bill pointed out, what you used on your project was a lacing chisel. Recently we had a thread about stitching chisels, and despite my bias towards using an awl, the photos of the chisel's holes make me think that they do have a place in this craft - apparently, somebody snuck in a different tool design when we weren't looking! Here's the thread: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=43327&st=0

Either way, whether by awl or stitching chisel, the holes will have a diamond shape to them that will help lay the thread in a certain pattern. If you prefer the look of the straight line, that is 'okay' because it's YOUR project. There are few hard 'rules' on the way things are done with leather....but we will try to advise you of the methods that have worked best for us over the years.

[MisterMoad]

Thank you all for the constructive criticism. I'm not finished with the wallet yet, so I can still follow some of your advice this time. Thanks again, John