I began by purchasing a small amount of leather through Tandy Leather, which was dark brown, and perhaps a hair too thick. It came as a surprise to me, the thickness of leather is actually measured in ounces. Through amazon, I ordered the "speedy stitcher". While I'll say I've used it since the wallet project, in order to mend a friend's jean jacket, I would have preferred to hand stitch the wallet/ The stitcher is essentially a manual sewing machine, only capable of using the lock-stitch, which does not generally lend itself to my projects. I will say, I have used it in every project so far as an awl, even when I did not stitch with it.
After the goods arrived, I attempted to print off the design from the Art of Manliness. Unfortunately, the diagram was intended for 11x17 inches, and even when the right paper was used, the design had to be played with before the design seemed right. The results of my first leather effort may be seen below:
While the wallet came out capable of holding a number of cards, and ultimately in a design that I enjoy, I still have my grievances. The first of which is that the stitches are not the straightest in the world. Since this was my first project, I was not wise enough to use a straight edge. Another issue with the stitching- The speedy stitcher uses waxed nylon thread, which is very difficult to tighten down in a knot well enough to stay. I resolved this issue quite recently, since the ends had finally come undone on the stitches. To keep the knots from slipping, the ends/knot may be melted slightly with a lighter, as with paracord. The final issue was that the middle pocket did not line up exactly correct, as can be seen in in the top picture, where the top of the wallet does not align correctly. The wallet is nice however, and has a pleasant feel to it. I know know that there are other factors - including the ability to skive the edges and polish the edges.
After completing the wallet, I still had a good amount of leather left. I started to play around with stitching after purchasing some leather needles, using both regular and leather thread. Below are a couple of examples using the cross stitch:
I then ventured into uncharted territories for myself, making an iPhone case out of some scrap yellow leather I purchased for a friend. I elected to use the cross stitch in order to create rounded edges, rather than the usual puckered look of a flat stitch.
In the end, the case fit a bit snug for the case, but a little stretching made it fit much better. Unfortunately, while the leather used was quite elastic, it was stretchy in the lengthwise direction, rather than the width, so it is still not the easiest case to put on a phone.
A while back, the Art of Manliness pushed me into another life change - I switched to using a straight razor after reading a number of their articles, including this introduction for beginners. While it would save me money in the long run, I did not feel like throwing down a couple hundred of dollars in order to buy a proper razor, strop, and other equipment. Instead, I purchased a plastic razor with 100 disposable blades from amazon, and a simple introductory soap dish and shaving soap set from Walmart. I'm really enjoying it - minus the occasional razor nick. But I'm getting better, in fact, I just starting against the grave shaving today, giving a much smoother shave. Which brings me to the final project in this post, a simple leather case for my razor, as an introduction to cases.
The case was crafted via hand sewing, and a rather strange shaped piece of leather. Rather than making a regular rectangular case, I opted to let the cover remain in the shape the leather came to me in. The button used to hold it shut was placed using a kit my mother owned for thin textiles; It gave me a lot of grief for using it in leather, but finally came out correct. So below is the finished product:
Ultimately, I am pleased with the outcome. This brown leather came in the bag of scraps, and is actually quite pleasant. Still, there is always room for improvement, and I would like at some point to attempt wet molding some of the leather, in order to make a less flexible, better shaped case. Maybe a first step would be to purchase a skiver and polish the edges, before I attempt to try making any more complex containers.
