New To Leather Working (4 Weeks In)

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Well, this is my first project and as you can see, the stitch groover got away from me, lol. And then there's the stitching itself. Haha... Well I needed to start somewhere, I knew it was going to be a master piece but good lord, this is much harder the Nigel Armitage makes it look.

Next I tried another sheath, this time a dangler for my girlfriend with an adjustable belt loop. Women and their darn "variable rise" jeans.. I was happier with this project but the stitching still looked off and I was struggling with either smooth transition lines or square edges. I'm finding that I'm a bit "challenged" at using a ruler and square.

Third project was yet another sheath. Getting better at the whole measurement thing and the stitching, from what I can tell, seems to be making a little progress.

Fourth project was a small "coin pouch" for all the loose crap that's generally in my pockets everyday. I was pretty happy with this one, the stitching looked more consist in places and I made straight and square measurements, however I vastly underestimated that amount of crap I was trying to stuff into this poor little pouch and needed to punch a second hole in the flap to get it to close. LOL, live and learn... Note to self: "punch hole after filling for accurate placement"

Then I got tired and looking at my project and being happy with the design and overall product but feeling that my stitching "consistency" was something that needed some attention. So I came to the forum and saw that Nigel had a "reference" video on how to knock out the saddle stitch. Well after watch that video 3-200 times and line stitching on about 10 pieces of scrap that I had around.

I finally got my stitching down to something that I found to be accessible. The choreography between my eyes, brain and fingers were able to finally get close to what Nigel was talking about / demonstrating in his video. Now it's the back stitch which is setting off my OCD'ness.

Then my last project which I finished up last night is a Composition Book Cover. This time I decided to try my hand at stitching 10 stitches per inch. A large amount of respect to you english guys that do this all the time, between nicking my thumb with awl and squinting to see my leather pricks, my hands and head hurt by the end of this one. Oh and after slicing my pinky fingers while stitching this project I also made myself a couple of leather finger condoms. This project is something that I'm, overall, happy with. I still need to work on my overall creation/cutting and measurements when getting the project from paper to leather, but I imagine that'll come with time and practice.

Lastly, I'd like to thank the community of this forum. You guys, and gals, have a wealth of information and have been an invaluable resource for helping me noodle through the challenges getting started with this craft.

Thank you all,

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[WScott]

Good to see someone working on their skills, researching, watching videos and getting practice in. Really good stitching improvement there.

Now you can drive yourself bonkers trying to get perfect edges....there are a few threads on here with different methods.

Good luck!

Scott

[Leprechaunleather]

great work ! welcome to the game! i notice the improvement on every project !

[Jimbob]

Nice very solid work....keep it coming, good to see someone to pick up leather work and produce usable items!!

Now to the details.....the edges need to be worked on, that makes half of your product !!

Lots of info here in this forum....I use Fiebings bar soap, wet the edge and then rub the snot out of them...little wax on it rubbing and done...other people have othere ways....main thing is your eges look slick and smooth!

Your sewing is not bad at all...keep practicing, all in all this is real good work !!

Ohhh,,,, and any BoBoo....you do as in "he groover got away" > I always take a tool and cut some design over it or with it and claim that it was meant to be there in the first place !!...hahaha.....

Rememer its all about fun...

Jimbob

[Wild Bill46]

Pop Copy I too welcome you to LWN, the best place on the web ! Yes most, are nice, humble, respectful, and exceptionally Helpful !!

I find its hard to stay away. You are well on your way to beautiful,workmanship indeed. I see a marked improvement. Stay at it.

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Thanks everyone for your replies and encouragement. Well, I took Jimbob's constructive criticism to heart and spent the last week or so using some scrap like a NASA chimp and started to learn about edging leather. Needless to say some pieces of leather ended their existence in a not so kind minor. Some got burnt while trying to dremmel burnish, some got sanded almost into oblivion and others got rubbed so hard with the burnishing stick that it looked like I was trying to compress the leather into forming a "T" around the entire piece. Well after reading a ton from the "how do I do that" forums, I think I may have a starting point.

Lessons learned / To-Do's:

1) I need to work, big time, on my sanding abilities. Burnishing seems to accentuate any flaws in the edge as, I'm assuming, that the goal is to bring the edge to a near mirror polish.

2) I'm thinking about getting a belt sander as this seems like the most efficient route for leveling the cut edges and then maybe a set of those cocobolo dremmel burnisher to replace my stick burnisher.

3) I need to experiment with the "post-water" burnishing. Do to a lack of funds I basically played around with some of my household items, beeswax, paraffin wax, bees wax with linseed oil, bees wax with neatsfoot oil and finally some homemade bowstring wax (beeswax, paraffin wax and some toilet bowl wax). I ended up using my bowstring wax because it was a bit more pliable and "seemed" to shine up a bit more then the others on my single piece test leather. With the edge unevenness of this sheath, the lack of shine is due more to the wizard then the wand.

4) as always...... MORE PRACTICE!

Again thanks everybody for the kind words. I'll let this post die now and open new topics as I complete additional projects.

Have a good one!

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[Effuse]

One thing to remember with your backstitching as that since you're stitching the opposite direction your stitch needs to change as well, so if you were stitching right hand priority with the left needle underneath going into the bottom of the hole, you would need to reverse that on the backstitch, so left needle on top going through the top of the hole.