What Small Change(S) Helped Improve Your Leatherwork?

[johnv474]

A few small changes can make a big difference, such as:

- if I have to apply much muscle to cut or stitch, something needs changed.

- figure out every detail on scrap leather, not on the finished item. Practice skills in isolation, not as part of a project.

- the craftsman is more often the limiting factor than the tool. Mastery of a half dozen tools will develop an apprentice's craftsmanship faster than ownership of a thousand.

[King's X]

A quality blade for your swivel knife.

[MudBugWill]

Sharp blade, this has been mentioned before. I suggest keeping a strop loaded with green compound and stropping a little but before each session, especially skiving knives.

Make your cuts clean and take your time to cut them accurately.

For joining leather pieces it is super helpful to have a right angle made of wood or something, laying like a sideways "L", about an inch high to butt pieces against and make sure they are lined up, before you press down on your contact cement.

Have a nice pair of dividers with a sharp point. The thinner the line you scribe, the straighter your stitching will be. aim small, miss small.

This is against the rules I have gathered, but when you can prick/punch both sides with the same iron, not a reverse, do it. You will have pretty, symmetrical, slanted saddle stitching on both sides. I found this out first doing my gussets on bags. If you cut and glue well, with good alignment it is possible in most cases to pre-prick/punch both sides. you must take time to plan your stitching and make sure to begin your holes at the exact right place on both sides.

[3wunder]

Keep a workshop and/or an inspiration journal.

I will use mine (an extra large Moleskine journal) for collecting interesting scraps from magazines (ads, fashion photography, etc.) which may inspire new pieces. Another use – and a very important one, at that – is sketching up these new designs and recording the exact measurements of finished pieces, as well as comments and suggestions. I do make cardboard patterns, but these tend to get lost or damaged over time, and it's proven VERY handy to have everything neatly in one place for future reference.

Oh, and add a date to your sketches. It'll be fun to browse through your old journals and see what you were up to years ago. Maybe that piece you never actually got around to making a few years back will at once make perfect sense then.