First I want to thank all of those who have check out this blog and my store over on Etsy. I appreciate every one of you and thank you for your time.
I wanted to take a second and talk about what has been going on for the past few weeks. I realized that I haven't been posting that much and felt I should try and recitify that. Ironically the reason I haven't been posting isn't due to my lack of working with leather, it is due to overabundance of working with leather as of late. One of my items, a leather cuff, has become quite popular and I'm having a hard time keeping up with the orders. In addition to that I have begun to get some custom orders that are taking a lot of time. What is really exciting though is that I'm learning something new with each project. In fact I have really cool project I'm cooking up right now that I'm going to start talking about a little bit later. (There is also a work related reason as to my absence as well, I have been moved to another position that doesn't have as much down time and therefore I can't devote as much time to the blog as I originally was able.) The long and the short of it is I will post as often as I am able and I will try to have at least one entry a week.
So I mentioned a few entries back that I was putting together a leather box. Let me tell you how that turned out:
It was a disaster.
My initial idea was sound and I did a really good job putting it together up until the riveting step. Due to the nature of the project the riveting situation wasn't ideal. I only have the anvil and driver for riveting so I had to try and rivet at an angle and it just didn't work. (I'm sure seasoned leather crafters cringed at that sentence. You NEVER want to rivet at an angle.) I did some research and found a wonderful tool that will rivet perfectly every time. Actually I found two tools, one you can only get from an upholstry website, and the other is from Tandy. Granted neither is cheap. So I have yet to get these magic rivet tools. When I do I will be happy to try my hand at my initial riveted leather box.
Initially I was content to let that be the end of it for now but I have been wanting to retry the leather box for years now. It kept nagging at me. One day a few weeks ago I was putting together one of my leather cuffs. (I'll do an entry on those soon.) I had just received some buckles and was attaching a buckle to a cuff using the saddle stitch method. Then it hit me. Do the box, set up in the same fashion, but instead of rivets use the saddle stitch method to keep it in place! So I'm working on that now I will let you know how it goes. I'm just about to stain it. I hope you like it!
That's all I have for today. Thank you again! Until next time, Happy Crafting!
Leather Banner
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Before You Start a Project Part I
Originally I was going to have this be one entry about transferring a pattern onto leather but I decided I wanted to talk about the lead up to the project. From the idea to right before you pull out your knife to cut the leather. To many this might seem like the boring part. This is the part that many people skip. That is a bad idea. The lead up can be the most important part of the project. And if it is done right then it will make the rest of the project a lot easier and fun to do.
Until recently I didn't have much of a "pre-project ritual." I would do the bare minimum and go on my merry way. In fact a lot of my projects were from kits so most of the planning stage was done. I just had to decide what I wanted to tool on the leather and then follow the instructions for everything else. You don't have that luxury when you are making a project from scratch. There are a lot of things you can do to make the overall project easier.
Currently I'm working on a project that I have tried before. Many years ago I came across a box pattern when I was still working with my leather teacher. I made the box and was pretty happy with myself. I still have that box and it sits on my shelf holding remnants of old art projects. The tooled design of a rose looks good and the natural leather color is attractive. But I hate the way it is stitched together. I like the box but it doesn't feel like a box. It was made with thin leather and many pieces. I learned a lot putting that box together and while I still really like it I would never consider making another one the same way.
Here enters my new project. I have been thinking of making another leather box for years now but I hadn't figured out how I was going to do it. I stumbled across another leather worker's cell phone case and it was very "box like." After further examination I figured out how it worked and decided to try it his way. My planning has begun.
When dealing with an idea and only an idea you need to get it down on paper. So sketch out what you think the finished project is going to look like. If you are not good at drawing it is fine, you just need to get an idea of the general dimensions of the project. Here I made a small sketch of the box and then labeled the sizes next to it. I decided I wanted the box to be 7 inches wide, 2 and half inches tall, and 4 inches deep. I marked those measurements and then I began to mentally "unfold" the box in my mind. I wanted to see what it would look like in a pattern format. Again I did a crude sketch of the pattern. This sketch, like the previous one, doesn't really have to be exact, you just need it get a general idea of how the pattern should look flat. After I finished sketching this out and I added the measurements to the pattern so I know how to mark out the actual pattern.
Now I add another step that I like to try before I go any further to verify that my pattern is going to work. I do this by measuring out a pattern that is in centimeters rather than inches. So it's 7 centimeters wide instead of 7 inches wide. I carefully measure out the pattern, marking the lines that need to be folded versus cut. Then I cut out the pattern, fold on the dotted lines, and tape the piece together. I have now made a paper scale model of the piece. This isn't necessarily something you need to do with every project. (For example, a bookmark.) But in projects like a box it may help to give you a better understanding of how it will go.
This is how I do the pattern. You don't have to do all of this. I like to as I don't want to get to the "assembly" stage and realize that I didn't think of scenario "X" and now I have to work around this problem. Also you may want to skip directly from the initial sketch to the accurate full size pattern. Or you may be able to do the initial sketch in your head and can unfold mentally without the physical visualization of the piece. More power to you. I do recommend trying all these steps at least once, then weed out the ones you feel you personally don't need on the next project.
Here is where I stop, sit down, and write down the rest of the steps from tooling to stitching. I want to be sure I have thought of everything and that I'm doing it in the correct order. Sometime a project will require you to do one step prior to another where another project needed that step done later or not at all. After I have all the steps on paper and I'm sure I have them in the right order I proceed to the next step.
I'm going to stop here as I have already written a pretty hefty entry. The next installment will go over what I do next and then getting a tooling pattern together and ready.
Until then, Happy Crafting!
Until recently I didn't have much of a "pre-project ritual." I would do the bare minimum and go on my merry way. In fact a lot of my projects were from kits so most of the planning stage was done. I just had to decide what I wanted to tool on the leather and then follow the instructions for everything else. You don't have that luxury when you are making a project from scratch. There are a lot of things you can do to make the overall project easier.
Currently I'm working on a project that I have tried before. Many years ago I came across a box pattern when I was still working with my leather teacher. I made the box and was pretty happy with myself. I still have that box and it sits on my shelf holding remnants of old art projects. The tooled design of a rose looks good and the natural leather color is attractive. But I hate the way it is stitched together. I like the box but it doesn't feel like a box. It was made with thin leather and many pieces. I learned a lot putting that box together and while I still really like it I would never consider making another one the same way.
Here enters my new project. I have been thinking of making another leather box for years now but I hadn't figured out how I was going to do it. I stumbled across another leather worker's cell phone case and it was very "box like." After further examination I figured out how it worked and decided to try it his way. My planning has begun.
When dealing with an idea and only an idea you need to get it down on paper. So sketch out what you think the finished project is going to look like. If you are not good at drawing it is fine, you just need to get an idea of the general dimensions of the project. Here I made a small sketch of the box and then labeled the sizes next to it. I decided I wanted the box to be 7 inches wide, 2 and half inches tall, and 4 inches deep. I marked those measurements and then I began to mentally "unfold" the box in my mind. I wanted to see what it would look like in a pattern format. Again I did a crude sketch of the pattern. This sketch, like the previous one, doesn't really have to be exact, you just need it get a general idea of how the pattern should look flat. After I finished sketching this out and I added the measurements to the pattern so I know how to mark out the actual pattern.
Now I add another step that I like to try before I go any further to verify that my pattern is going to work. I do this by measuring out a pattern that is in centimeters rather than inches. So it's 7 centimeters wide instead of 7 inches wide. I carefully measure out the pattern, marking the lines that need to be folded versus cut. Then I cut out the pattern, fold on the dotted lines, and tape the piece together. I have now made a paper scale model of the piece. This isn't necessarily something you need to do with every project. (For example, a bookmark.) But in projects like a box it may help to give you a better understanding of how it will go.
This is how I do the pattern. You don't have to do all of this. I like to as I don't want to get to the "assembly" stage and realize that I didn't think of scenario "X" and now I have to work around this problem. Also you may want to skip directly from the initial sketch to the accurate full size pattern. Or you may be able to do the initial sketch in your head and can unfold mentally without the physical visualization of the piece. More power to you. I do recommend trying all these steps at least once, then weed out the ones you feel you personally don't need on the next project.
Here is where I stop, sit down, and write down the rest of the steps from tooling to stitching. I want to be sure I have thought of everything and that I'm doing it in the correct order. Sometime a project will require you to do one step prior to another where another project needed that step done later or not at all. After I have all the steps on paper and I'm sure I have them in the right order I proceed to the next step.
I'm going to stop here as I have already written a pretty hefty entry. The next installment will go over what I do next and then getting a tooling pattern together and ready.
Until then, Happy Crafting!
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