February Keep Making Stuff Challenge

[thefanninator]

Nice work everyone. Thanks for participating. Hope you're learning. I'll post the March Challenge tomorrow in a new thread @ 9 am CST.

[MonicaJacobson]

Nice, looks great!

[Charliewz]

YT, nice clean work. Love it.

Realm13, good looking case, like your leather choices.

[Waylon1977]

and here is mine ! Had some things I had to iron out, but I'm pretty please with it. I added some snaps on the straps.

[cardinal leather]

teo more new twist. both looking good. i like the snap idea.

[YinTx]

In a word, Yin Been Stitchin!

I did not follow the original design, since I started this in December when I picked up a piece of leather and started cutting and dying it for the first time. I could not find something that I liked for myself, so I designed each piece of this on my own from the get go. I have had to learn a lot of things to get this bag completed, including, well, everything since I had never worked in leather before. So design, cutting, dying, treating, burnishing, folded edges, lining, wet molding, sealing, and not least of all stitching, including saddle stitching and box stitching. Did I say stitching. I think there were about 210 linear inches of stitch on this little bag: that would be 17 linear feet! Everything is done by hand, no power tools. I didn’t have a lot of good tools to do this with, just a Craftool 2.5mm stitching chisel to mark and an awl to pierce the leather. The veg tanned leather was not the best, seems I got some of Tandy’s stuff that folks were recently complaining about. And I was wishing I had better thread than the generic spool of braided I don't know what, but I waxed it and used it anyhow. I think a Barbour, Tiger, or Fil Au Chinois would have looked much nicer and been easier to deal with. But overall, the kit it is something I will use and I really like the way it came out. I hadn’t expected to end up stitching quite that much by hand, since I had originally intended to fabricate this with a stitching machine, but there it is, all by hand. The kit is a bit larger than typical, mostly because I wanted to be able to put standard sized items like shaving cream cans, hair brushes, toothpaste, etc. in there without having to resort to “travel size” items.

I hope everyone enjoys it.

The edges are not completed, as I would like to spend more time to make them nice, but still wanted to enter into the February challenge. I will put more photos in my gallery as I get them uploaded.

Items used:

Veg tan leather

pigskin liner

Dye

vegetable oil

D-Rings

O-Ring

Button Studs

Resolene Round Knife

Ruler/straight edge

glue brush

needles

thread

beeswax

awl

Craftool 2.5mm stitching chisel

scratch awl

Hole punch

edge beveler

burnishing stick

pliers

Wet form:

Wood

Saw

Screws

Screwdriver

small hammer

contact cement

sand paper

Stitching pony

YinTx

[MonicaJacobson]

@Waylon, the snaps are a good alternative. Great idea, and nice looking bag.

Yin, you really went all out on the stitching. And the stitching looks really very nice. I think ultimately, you'd need to stitch all the way around the pigskin lining, but I'm not sure what people do in those cases. I'd assume so for myself. Interesting design, too. I'll be interested to hear if you like it a lot or start to see problems with it as you use it.

[YinTx]

Monica,

You are right on the lining needing stitching all the way around, and as you can see if you look closely, I have already marked the lid for the stitches, but I knew I wouldn't have it done in time, so I stopped where I could. I will finish it out soon. Thank you for the positive compliment on the stitch work, I have been really focusing on trying to improve it. I have a long way to go to reach any level of perfection, but I am happy with the progress I have made in two months since I started.

And CharlieZ, nice work on the tooling!

I also liked the color combination that rundogdave did.

YinTx

[DiamondGLeather]

Hey guys and girls, I just stumbled along this Challege. wondering if I can jump in and start with March's Monthly challenge? and if so has the new project been posted yet? Thanks.

[thefanninator]

Yes & yes.