Sewing Leather

I've been stuck learning to sew with leather on the fly for several weeks. When FuzzyHusband and I agreed to take this project on, the original plan was for the items to be made in vegetable tanned leather. However our client had other ideas and thus it became my problem. I really do need to teach Himself how to sew so next time I'm not doing the lion's share of the work.

Said commission consists of many leather straps, some hardware, and three larger chunks of leather. It's rather mature in nature, so I shan't be showing the final product here. Let's just say it's for a burlesque show in an extremely specialized venue and leave it at that.

What I can show are pictures of the unassembled straps that are waiting for me to finish the larger chunks.

The lighter leather is chromium tanned. Quite lovely and soft. Someday I'll make myself a gorgeous purse out of scraps in different colors. The darker gray is patent leather. Patent leather has become a pain in my backside and Himself owes me big time for having to pull off the miracles I'm making with it.

I shall be spending the rest of my Sunday trying to finish those chunks so I can wash my hands of the mess and get back to finishing the fabric portions of the project. I don't mind learning by trial and error, but when I'm working with expensive material that someone else has paid for and have a timeline, I'm less fine with it. Once I'm done with the fabric portion, FH and I will start his sewing lessons.

I shall leave you with adorable distractions. They're so much fun to watch together. Victor adores Ellie. Ellie is intrigued by Victor, but beyond that she's still figuring things out.

Happy Little Handbags

I think I went a bit overboard this past week. I wanted a break from hats and there was a neat modern handbag project in a mini mag that I'd recently picked up.

Monday's stream Saw me experimenting with different bits of thin leather. I learned that of the leather on hand, the thin suedes worked the best. So in this photo, only the mulberry leather bag (and the binder clip bag I made for funsies) were kept.

Tuesday I raided my stash of suede and pulled out three colors to play with. I also picked up some "bling" to make them spiffier. I also cut out several more bags in different colors and the card stock supports pieces. That took quite a while.

I thought it might be fun to use both sides of the suede so I could get different textures. Both of these blue bags are from the same piece of leather! :-)

Wednesday was a really long stream. I assembled 11 bags! The first red bag also got its decorations.

I had to call it quits around 7pm so I could eat something. Once I'd caught my breath, I did these two black bags quickly. Again, note the difference in the textures. Same leather piece for both.

So now I have lots of these bags. Not sure where all of them will end up, but I couldn't resist all the different colors. Sadly, the mulberry leather has the same texture on both side, so I can't get two different bags from that one. Also the other side of the leather that ivory bag (left front) doesn't have an appealing texture, so it's a singleton as well.

Thursday was mini group day. We organized more than we worked on projects. But we have 2 full Saturdays panned for this summer! And we've divided up this year's Festival dollhouse! So it was a productive meeting.

Friday I cleaned up many things downstairs. It was long overdue. And Saturday FH  and I watched the Derby with our neighbor. I made a cake that evening, but it's still setting up in the fridge and I'd prefer not to disturb it for a picture. If I can, I'll get one and add it to the post later.

For now, it's late (just barely technically Sunday morning) and I need to finish cleaning up the kitchen and go to bed. There is a "Welcome Home" party for "Little D"... who isn't so little anymore. He's all grown up and back from serving a tour of duty overseas. It's going to be a wonderful Sunday afternoon!

*** Edit: As promised, the Margarita Cake!
(That gel layer is tequila, grand marnier, margarita mix, and gelatin. Needless to say, must be 21 to consume in the US.)

Belt for My Dad

FH and I made this belt for my dad.  We used a pre-embosed belt blank to start off.  He did the color work, finishing, and added the conchos.  I picked the colors, did the sizing, and shaping. 

The conchos are riveted on and the buckle is removable/changeable.  He used a yellow leather dye with a brown hi-lite to get the warm brown tones.

A Blue Streak...Or Flame Perhaps

Our little brother (little is an operative word, he's 27 and bigger than FH) has an old beat up wallet with blue flames stitches on it.  It's horrible looking but well loved.  When they were here for New Years last year I traced the flames and took pictures for color reference.  FH was supposed to make him a new one, but got distracted by another thought.  Instead he made a more grown-up gift.

 

 

 Here's a picture of the flames in better light, before the black hi-lite was applied.

This is another project that we both worked on.  In this case I painted the flames whilst FH was at work.  He did the remainder.

A Prancing Pony

One of our best friends has an affinity (possibly bordering on an obsession) with a particular car maker.  To that end, FH and I came up with an interesting Yule gift for him.

One prancing pony, carved in leather.

I'm not sure which he liked better.  The finished result or watching FH do the carving whilst seated in his kitchen.  In the time it took me to fry chicken and make mashed potatoes, FH had this marked, cut, and tooled. 

He will be making a frame for this piece himself as he's our favorite woodworker.  I'd link to the posts featuring the pieces of his that we're proud to own but they're lost in the blog, tag-less.  Maybe I'll have time to dig them out of the darkness but not today.  I have a ton of projects in the queue that need finishing and a few that need to be started with definite deadlines.  The next several blog posts were written all at once and scheduled to post.  I'll be officially back sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Leather and Lace

FH and I decided to make ornaments as gifts this year.  We had so much fun, we;ll be doing them with the same theme for a while.

The shapes will be different each year.  In fact we're almost done with the leather ornaments for the next two years, but you'll have to wait to see them. ;-)

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful holiday.

Leather In Progress

In addition to me working on stockings, FH and I are working on some leather ornaments together.  He doesn't like working with some of the coloring products, so generally that's where I step in.  However I've help with some of the carving on these pieces.

The candy canes are done except for signing the backs and sealing them.

 These snowmen need another coat of white, their details painted, and signed/sealed.

 The trees need their garlands painted and signed/sealed.

Here are the carved sections for two new stockings in progress.  I should add that FH isn't helping with these.  He just doesn't have time.

The letters on this one got a little wonky, but overall I'm pleased with it.

 Still need to finish the carving on this one.  There will probably be another small motif at the bottom, with the name in the middle.

Hopefully next time I'll have some more finished things to show off.

An Experiment In Irritation

So FH and I were at Tandy Leather a couple weekends ago and I saw they were having a class on a leather stocking.  The sample was trimmed in rabbit fur and had a cute little buckled belt across it.  I thought it was really cute and the class was only two hours long, so I signed up.

When I got there on class day it was another story.  Suddenly the cute belt with buckle were nixed (by the instructor/manger) and instead we were to personalize our stockings with a piece of veg-tan leather.  You know... the kind that FH carves on.  Ok..... I went along with it thinking "why not?"

I'm really happy with how my carving and dye work went. 

However, that's where I cease being happy.

The only thing resembling a pattern that we worked with was a tracing of the original class sample...you know, the one we didn't work with.  I should also note that we didn't get to keep the pattern for whatever reason.  Let me state again that the design concept was changed that very morning... minutes before we walked through the door with no prior testing.

The class turned into an all day affair, six and a half hours, with the extra time it took to work on the carving.  No one left with finished pieces.  I had purchase supplies that FH didn't already have in order to finish it at home.  It took me the rest of the evening to sew the seam closed by hand since I couldn't use my machine thanks to the carved section.  But that's isn't the worst part.

The carved section was to be attached with decorative buckstitching before the stocking was sewn shut.  The piece was so large that I had to trim it down to make turning the stocking right side out after sewing even possible.  This meant I would loose width on the rabbit fur trim, a point the whole thing still had in it's favor.

This is what it looks like.  I refuse to finish sewing the fur together at the top because I'm debating tearing the whole thing apart for parts.  I'd turn the carved section into an ornament somehow and use the suede for minis if I take it apart.

I've already figured out how to fix every issue I have with this project and am working on two new ones at the moment.  I'm just disgusted that the whole thing cost a bunch of money and I hate the result.  I'll be posting pictures of the new ones sometime soon.

Hats and Goggles!

What Steampunk event is complete without hats and goggles?

FH found some older style welding goggles at a local welding supply place.  Note the he found them and I fetched them. Then we bronzed them with some nifty paint we found at Michael's.

Sadly with his job being what it is, he didn't have time to make buckled leather straps for them.  But that's on his to-do list now.

FH ordered himself a handsome bowler hat to rest his goggles on.

My hat didn't get finished.  Again FH's real job ate up time and he didn't get very far with making leather and metal flowers to decorate it with.  This is his practice rose which I do think looks very nice.  He hadn't had a chance to put the center petals in place.

Instead one of our friends had an extra prop hat from a costume shop and a feather band to spare.

I added my goggles, a couple of flowers, and a scarf I had in my dresser.  I worked very well, but I think I'll be finishing my hat for the next time we're dressing up.  Especially if it's a lovely sunny day again.  I was really missing the brim on the unfinished hat.

Christmas Eve 2010

First of two posts today.  I had planning on combining them, but there are too many pictures.

Christmas Eve saw FH off from work since Christmas was on a Saturday.  Snow was coming down thickly so we shifted our plans around to deal with that.  We had word that a pregnant friend had gone into labor that morning so off we went to buy a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament.  We got the last one in the store... no choices... Classic Winnie the Pooh or nothing.

Then we did some food and spirit shopping (yay for Jameson) and went to see our borrowed kids while their mom was at work.  That's when things got "interesting."  The kids weren't at home and their mom had no idea where they were.  Keeping in mind the hazardous weather AND the simple fact of them not being allowed to leave the apartment without their mother's permission.  Also the little darlings knew we were coming by.  This was planned the night before.

Once they reappeared (only because they had a minuscule bit of forethought and had a cell phone) they were bodily tossed into our car with me barking like a drill instructor the whole way.  Apparently they were "bored with waiting" for us to show up and it was snowing so they decided to go outside.  They neglected to call either their mother or us before disappearing, which of course was their major blunder.  I told them since they couldn't be trusted to be at home by themselves to consider themselves grounded until their mother got to our house after work. 

I proceeded to shovel the driveway just to be outside and not looking at them for a bit so I could regain composure.  They were allowed to read, but were confined to the kitchen table for the remainder of the day.  Little D was allowed to finish his mother's Christmas gift, but that was it.  Grrr.  The really irritating part is the boy is almost 16... more than old enough to know better.

Anyway once their mom got to our place and heard the full story she decided that since I had succeeded in putting the fear of God into them, and that they'd been in detention for over 6 hours, that they might have learned their lesson.  Maybe.  We'll see.  But the three of us are watching.

The actual fun part about this post are the pictures of the things the kids made for each other and their mom.  So here they are:

Medicine wheel Little D made for his mom.

Detail of the center carving.

Necklace and matching earrings Hummingbird made for her mom.

Leather bracelet Hummingbird made for Little D.

Back of the coin purse Little D made for Hummingbird.  Her name is carved on the front and looks great.

Oh and before I forget, Jackson Mathew entered the world around 6pm eastern time on Christmas Eve.  He's healthy and gorgeous.  His mother is doing great and ready to be at home.

Layette, Lead, and Leather

The weather this weekend was absolutely gorgeous. FH and I took advantage of Tempie's improvement and escaped the house for a while.

Saturday was sewing circle, where I crocheted instead of sewed. A college friend announced his impending fatherhood so I dug out a crochet project that has been hibernating for about five years now.

The jacket had been mostly finished except for the end of one sleeve and the button edges. Now it just needs the bit of pink trim and the pink flower motifs.
One bootie was finished and it's pink motif was done but not attached. I've started it's mate now.
Not to be stuck inside all day I joined FH and our friends in the task of pouring "round ball" for the muzzle loaders.If folks want to know more about this process, I have blog fodder and pictures.

While I took a turn at casting, FH started work on a knife sheath that he's been meaning to start for a month or so now.It's not finished yet, but I will get pictures when the work is done.

Gotta run. It's gorgeous outside again and Tempie is still eating on her own! :-)