Cell Phone Cover Take Two

I finally was able to put together a second cell phone cover.  This second cover came together a lot easier than the first one.  I noticed as I put the piece together I was able to pin point places where I did it better the second time because I had rushed it the first time.

Let's get started:

First I took my pattern and traced it onto the leather like I had the first time.  This pattern is fairly simple and you just need to cut along the lines and punch where the dots are placed.  The larger the dots, the larger the punch.  

I decided to try something different this time with cutting the leather.  In the past, included the previous cell phone cover, I was using a ruler to guide my cuts.  For me this was not working out very well.  Every cut I made was wavy and it just didn't look nice.  So I decided to cut free hand but take it very slow.  This actually worked really well.  If you look closely you can see in a spot or two that it was done free handed but compared to the previous attempts with a guide it was head and shoulders above them.  The key is to take it VERY SLOW.

Here are the pieces that were cut out.  I was really pleased with this result.

After I cut the pieces out it was time to punch out the holes.  The previous attempt I had waited until I had stained the piece before I punched.  I advise against that as the guide marks you made when using the pattern will be covered up by the stain.  By punching out the holes now you can use the guide marks and if you did your pattern transfer properly you don't have to worry about the holes being off.  I used my standard drive punch:

After I punched the holes I tooled the piece.  I did the same Apple Logo along with a border, cut by a swivel knife, on the main piece and the four small pieces that hold the piece together.

(NOTE: This is in regards to the first cell phone cover I made before.  Here is where I screwed up the last time.  As I mentioned before I hadn't punched the holes yet in the previous attempt and I stopped for the night.  I should have stained the piece before I left it, not to mention punching the holes.  But I didn't.  So when I sat down the next night the first thing I had to do was stain the piece.  BAD IDEA.  If your first order of business when sitting down to work on a piece is to stain it, then understand that you will probably be doing that and only that on that day.  Always try to set up your work day to have staining being the last thing you do.  If it can't be avoided then just accept the fact that you will stain the piece and come back to it on another day.  It is possible for stain to dry in an hour or two but I do not recommend moving onto the next step until it has dried for at least six to seven hours.  It may feel dry but it may still be wet inside.  And as you work with the leather the wet part will surface, get on your hands, and smudge the top.  It doesn't hurt anything to just walk away and come back later.  I didn't do this on my first cell phone cover attempt.  I stained it, waited an hour, then started to punch the holes, lace, and rivet the piece.  This is a big reason why I wasn't 100% satisfied with the outcome.  This showed me that it is very important to plan out your project steps.  Don't just blindly dive into a project without thinking it through first.  I won't make this mistake again. )

On my second cell phone cover I stained the piece BEFORE I walked away for the evening.  I used the same stain.  After it sat for an hour I stained the underside of the main piece and the four small pieces.  It was at this point I let it sit for the night.  

Now, because all the punching had been finished, I could jump right to the lacing when I came back the next day.  This time I started with the thin strip flesh to flesh with the main piece and laced the piece together like so:  

(You will see why I did this in a moment.) Here is what it looks like finished:

As you can see below I then flipped the thin strip over and it started the belt loop:

After lacing the second part the belt loop was finished.  I just continued to lace the rest of the piece.  (I was using saddle stitch by the way.)

While I was punching the holes I followed the pattern to a "T" which wasn't good because I wanted to make this piece a little more compact than the pattern calls for.  I wasn't thinking and accidentally punched a hole where there was not supposed to be a hole.  You can see it below:

After I cursed a few times, I came up with an idea.  I put a rivet there and it looks really nice:

Here is the piece fully laced but before riveting.

I put the rivets in and finished off with the snap and that was all she wrote:

I was really happy with this outcome.  It fits the phone very well and I like it very much.  It is over on the store if anyone is interested.  I'm working on some new projects now.  I'll have those posted as soon as I can.  As always, drop me a line if you have any questions or comments.  Thanks!

Happy Crafting!