Ugly oil blotches on carved leather

[csk]

Hello All,

I could sure use your help.

I just furnished this tooling for a handbag, and decided to oil the leather as it seemed kind of dry. One side of the bag reacted fine, but in the other side parts of the tooled areas remained dark and ugly. It's been around 15 hours.since I oiled it and although the stains seem slightly lighter I'm in a panic because this represents a lot of work for me (I'm new to this) and I really would prefer not to have to redo it, if at all possible.

This back is supposed to be natural leather color, but worse comes worse could I dye it? Would that camouflage the stains?

If anyone has any suggestions I'd REALLY appreciate it.

This is the stained side:

and this is the other side that's more or less ok.

Thanks,

Carolyn

[Handstitched]

That has happened to me, mainly due to over saturation  of oil.  I have also found , from experience,  that there may have been  something on/in  the leather that has caused it to soak in too much in one spot. 

It 'might'  soak in a bit more if you left it a bit longer, try it . However, if all else fails, then yes, try dying it  using a slightly dark antique, but it may also still show through a bit , depending on how many coats you apply. 

Nice tooling though  

HS 

[csk]

Thanks very much HS. Your reply is a really a relief for me because it sounds like maybe it's not all lost. 

So that's what I'll do, I'll leave it for a while to see if it soaks in and if not, I'll try the antiquing.

And thanks for noticing the tooling!

[Northmount]

Leave it alone for 2 or 3 days to allow the oil to fully disperse through the leather.  Areas that have been tooled soak up a lot more oil just due to the rougher surface that collects more oil than a smooth surface.  In the future, oiling from the back side may help avoid this problem.  Always go easy on the amount of oil you use.  Hard to remove it if too much is used and it gets soggy! 

Nice job!

Tom

[csk]

Thanks Tom!

I'll be sure to remember in the future to oil from the backside on these heavily tooled areas.

Thanks for your comment, it's very encouraging!