Pipster

For most of my detailed cutting I've been using generic #11 craft knife blades and it seems the "wear curve" on them is rather aggressive to start with then kind of goes flat.

Like, a new blade goes through leather like butter but that lasts for maybe 4-5 decently sized cuts before it starts needing multiple swipes and then at some point it almost feels like the leather is bumpy or grainy where the blade isn't cutting through denser sections.

I don't want to be too wasteful nor do I want to be forever changing blades - how long do you tend to go between changes?

I had a lot of fun with this one, just made it on the fly. Was originally planning to just make a relatively simple one that I could use to try lining an item but it seemed a waste as the suede side was so soft. Ended up creating this, its a really simple shape and not too difficult to make. Once I start doing some skiving to reduce the thickness where the retaining bands attach and some other embellishments I think this could look really good. I want to make this exact one again but this time in a much darker leather and with a really heavily contrasting thread.

I also made this keyring the other day, lets just say it was a learning exercise... The rivet was my first one and it went wonky, cutting a tiny slot with a knife through two layers was not a fun thing and I made a bit of a pigs ear of the stitching placement. I did however enjoy making a little geometric design with my awl.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...