Pipster

joined 5 months ago
 

I had a lot of fun today. I had the day off so went down to the leather shop where my crafting journey began and bought a bunch of new tools, supplies and more leather offcuts to have more fun. I ended up getting around 8kg of leather, some black Tokonole, Sam Brown studs and punches, double cap rivets and setter, water based glue and some wing dividers.

When I got back I made this little wrist cuff thing, its rather comfortable, really just made it to see what an adjustable item using the stud could look like to have a go at using it.

I also made a little clutch I had been wanting to make for a while, it was actually one of the first patterns I downloaded, printed and stuck to card but I just didn't have any leather of the right thickness and size. I think the leather I ended up using was a little on the thin side but this was otherwise a very simple little project.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

By chance I went down to visit them today, I had a day off I had forgotten about that I had to use before the end of March. I brought my stuff with me to ask and they were really pleased to see what I had been doing and even took some pictures for their website!

I was right in what the leather was, it is indeed Badalassi Pueblo, its really nice, I got to see some much bigger cuts of it and I'm keen to make some more from that at some point.

 

In my ongoing obsession to make little leather holders and pouches for the tools I need to make other holders and pouches in a weird cycle, I decided a nice and quick little project was to replace the little plastic holder for my awl with a leather one.

So I quickly sketched it, measured it and drafted it then made it. I think it came out ok, I really, really don't like this leather though, I don't know exactly what it is but its the only one I've got that's really thin enough and its got this weird stretchy texture where the top layer seems to move around when cutting and it burnishes really weirdly and not very nicely. It also gets all kinds of weird stretch marks and things around the stitches, I'm interested to find out what it actually is.

 

Just came back from a week away for work which has torn me away from my learning. Getting back into the flow of things with a simple little project and free pattern from J. H. Leather which is a little pouch for holding needles.

I made a few mistakes on this, had to unpick some thread and the pattern seemingly was designed for stitching chisels of a different pitch so I've got some uneveness (yes I probably could have accounted for it but I just kind of went in head first on it). I'm not overly keen on the pattern itself so I'd like to draft my own at some point instead to make it more how I prefer.

I do feel I'm coming to a point where I need some new tools to play with, an edge beveller and some simple hardware setting tools (and hardware) in particular.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago

Other than miles most of our stuff is metric anyway, at least legally. Like yeah, we use stones and feet for 'human' measurements in speech etc but if you go to the doctors it would be in kilos and metres. There are a few oddities like milk bottles being in pints and beer in pubs but even then you find things like plant milks and bottles/canned beer in litres. The one that really makes no sense is car fuel efficiency. We sell fuel by the litre but measure it in miles per (imperial) gallon - so it doesnt even tie up with American figures.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago

And Larry Ellison puts money into his charity looking into how to live forever...

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm going back to the place I got it from soon so I plan to bring some of the things I've made or scrap examples to find out what leather it actually is. There are a few that are really nice.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I wish I knew, its from 2kg of scraps and offcuts I grabbed from random boxes. It might be Badalassi Carlo Pueblo.

 

This one isn't even slightly complicated but I was able to knock the entire thing out in about 2.5 hours from the start of taking measurements to it being finished.

I needed something to hold or at least cover the ends of my thread snippers so I just quickly took some measurements, made a very simple pattern in LibreCAD, printed it, glued it to cardboard and cut out and constructed the thing. From the first leather cut to it being completed it took about 90 minutes. Its nice being significant more confident in each step and having saddle stitching down now meaning this kind of project was completed with basically no drama or significant effort.

Well, I say no drama. My cheap Aliexpress diamond stitching chisels have some bent prongs, which is no loss, I knew they would only be of limited use and just wanted to see if I should invest in some decent ones. I didn't notice until i spotted the wonky stitching holes on the reverse side. The other stuff I bought there like the burnishing tool bit for a dremel has been far more useful.

 

This was quite a fun one. Lots of curvy lines to cut out freehand, used a hole punch rather than chisels and had some rather difficult sewing to close it up. Fun and cute though!

Pattern I downloaded (with video) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YAPf-X10ZI

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago

Thanks :), its probably a bit hard to see but its really just some mildly wobbly edges and its slightly asymmetrical where one stitch line is a bit "tighter" than the other in both how close it fits and how close I cut to the line.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago

Pretty much, yeah. Soak the top one and stretch, smoosh and massage it to the object with a bone folder (I didn't have a bone folder yet so I just used some relatively not-too-sharp items I had laying around) then clamp it in place so it can't change shape and when it dries it will hold that shape. I kind of but didn't precisely follow this - https://mazeleather.com/4-ways-to-wet-mold-leather/.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago

Thanks! Its the little 18mm one ❤

 

So this is today's creation. I kind of just wanted to try out wet moulding and my knife was a kind of simple enough flat shape to try it. It actually didn't go too badly, sure I could have done with better (and gentler) clips and a thicker, or at least less stretchy, leather but I think it worked.

The other thing that was new to me here is that I just freehanded the whole thing. I took some rough pencil marks and some rough measurements to start with but, having no idea how wide the front panel needed to be I just kind of glued it, cut it, stitched it, cut it some more, sanded and burnished it, all just freehand because I couldnt really get a ruler in there to cut against.

So yeah, rough as hell, misshapen in places and covered in marks and little mistakes but I kind of love it for that.

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Heavy duty tool pouch (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/leathercraft@lemmy.ca
 

Today I made a tool pouch thing out of really thick leather, far thicker than anything I've worked with so far (about 4mm). It was originally intended to hold my stitching chisels and was going to have two lines of vertical stitching to create 3 pockets but I really didn't take into account just how thick this stuff was and I didn't have nearly the right tolerances for it so I just didn't make the pockets.

This thing was tough. I had real issues in getting my chisels out after making the holes (especially on the triple thick section - even with just a 2-prong) and this has been the first project to draw blood - one of the first sets of holes I made with my 10-prong and as it released it flew back and scratched my hand.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago

Not sure, I've yet to attempt such a thing. This was rather stretchy and relatively thin leather but I don't think I could have done it with this.

 

My 6th project. This one I self drafted rather than using an online pattern (although I did use a few to get an idea) and was really just meant to be a very simple one to practice stitching and get a nice super burnished edge. The flap is a tad wide but the leather is really stretchy so the band quickly accomodated it.

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/leathercraft@lemmy.ca
 

This is my next one, used a pattern for a coin or (yet another) card holder which was significantly more complicated than any I've done so far. All my previous projects have been very much flat - cut out pieces, glue them flat, sew them together.

This one featured two really tiny gussets and no instructions for how to put any of this together, so I tried my best to put things together in an order that made sense and, whilst it took quite a while, it went together ok.

I made a few mistakes as usual, the nearly completed item was a real pain to complete the stitching on and I made a mistake in not realising i would need to be stitching to be continuous over the top of the gusset so ended up with 3 separate stitch lines for the final closing.

I rather like the colour and thicknesses of the leather and went for a more subtle thread colour this time. I also got my bottle of gum trag delivered so I burnished the edges with that rather than water as I had been doing previously (I'll be trying out Tokonole at some point too).

I'm pretty happy how it came out. I mean, I've got yet another item I don't really have a requirement for but it was good practice for something more technically complicated.

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago

No divider just yet, buying tools bit by bit so that is all just measured by hand and ruler. These are all pieces for practice atm rather than intentionally making something nice. The leather thickness and thread width haven't come into it just yet, I've literally just got a 2kg bag of leather offcuts so its the luck of the draw if something is thick or thin or in the right colour.

The first one is made with 0.8mm anebraid thread provided by the place I did the workshop at (and almost certainly not done with enough tension) and the second red thread is 1mm cheapo ebay waxed thread to tide me over.

Even the stitching chisels were just the 3.8mm ones that came in the little toolkit I got from the workshop (all of them are done with the same chisels). Essentially yeah, nothing is perfect yet but I don't intend it to be, my main focus is on skills rather than finished items.

Thank you for the input though!

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I originally tried to use Inkscape to make a simple pattern but I found it frustrating to make anything of accurate size. I then decided to have a go with LibreCAD instead and found it far more intuitive to make things accurately. It can ouput to svg, pdf and png as well as using dxf natively. I plan to get a cheap little cnc router to just send a pattern and get something cut out of wood or acrylic.

14
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/leathercraft@lemmy.ca
 

Hi, I'm new to this community and its sad that it appears to be a little quiet to say the least. Still, maybe if I post some stuff it might get some people interested again.

So I only very recently started leathercrafting. It has been a desire of mine for a little while but I really got the bug a couple of months ago and waited to go on a cheap course to see if I liked it before I started spending money on tools and supplies. And since I did it last Friday (7th of March) I've been having a lot of fun.

So here are the things I've made so far, I'm very much still learning and I know a lot of this is very rough still but I'm definitely improving already!

Card holder 1

Made in the workshop I did last Friday, I don't mind how this came out, but my stitching is really rough (I didn't really have a consistent method yet and kept putting the thread over or under in random orders.

Card holder 2

A few days after the workshop I used the tools and offcuts I bought at the workshop to make another of the same thing. I did forget to buy thread so used a strong upholstery thread I had lying around, which is why it looks very thin. Definitely did a better job cutting stuff out and lining it up this time.

A different type of card holder

This was a pattern I downloaded and printed onto paper. I really messed things up here, I wasn't accurate in cutting it out, the leather was horrible to work with, I messed up gluing it and just generally a bit of a disaster all round. But I did learn a lot from my mistakes.

A passport holder/cover

This I kind of self drafted. Its rather similar to the card holder but the measurements were taken from my old passport holder and then drafted using LibreCAD, printed out and glued onto some card so it would be more accurate to mark. I really took a lot more time with this one and I'm genuinely really happy with the results. My thicker flat waxed thread arrived and I was much more cautious in cutting things out, lining things up and trimming neatly. It is a tad snug but it will stretch a little with time and I plan to actually use this.

What next?

Next step I want to get some hardware fastenings so I can start doing fasteners etc. but I'm having a lot of fun just making things. I do hope my family and friends like leather goods...

[–] Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I've been curating a list of UK resources for my own use:

https://stormleather.com/ - Leather
https://identityleathercraft.com/ - Leather, supplies, events, workshops
https://www.jwoodleathers.co.uk/ - Leather
https://www.leathermerchantsussex.co.uk/ - Leather
https://www.jhleather.co.uk/ - Workshops, tutorials
https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/littlebearco - Supplies
https://www.hedgehogleather.co.uk/ - Leather, supplies
https://leather4craft.co.uk/ - Leather, supplies, workshops
https://www.georgebarnsleyandsons.co.uk/ - Toolmaker
https://armitageleather.com/ - Workshops, info

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