I thought it would be nice to show each other the very first items we made and have a good ol' laugh at our own expenses!
I'll start by sharing with you the very first wallet I ever made (which was also the first item I ever made). And I have to say, it is awful!!!
Now I am not saying that I am not proud of myself for having made it, but here are all the things i did wrong:
- I free hand cut everything, no template no nothing, because why not?
- I used 7 oz hard temper Vegtan for the main body
- I used 4 oz goat skin for the pockets
- I used a 2.7 mm diamond chisel for the stitching paired with an 0.8mm stitching awl thread, (whatttttt???)
- I pressed down so hard when burnishing that the edge of the goat skin actually folded bakcwards and hid the stitching lines (which could be considered a blessing given the look of the stitching)
Next to the famous wallet is my revision of the same design, 6 months later. Needless to say, I had made some progress. I am also sure I don't need to tell you which is the old, and which is the new...
So, I made you laugh at myself, now make me laught at you :D
Thought I'd add my first efforts and show some of the stages of improvement. To say these aren't the only attempts in the progression is an understatement. I don't know how many different iterations of a "strap" I've fumbled through. Still a long way to go.
You can see how rough it started. That was maybe a year ago. It was my first effort at anything other than stitching a simple line. I had no idea about leather thickness, thread selection, pricking, skiving, glue...literally anything...I didn't event work off a pattern or own a hole punch! It was just a free-hand cut to play around and see what happened. The thought of finishing edges didn't even occur to me. At that point, the only real information I was coming across was in the western genre and it wasn't really the direction I wanted to head.
The second one was about 6 months ago. It was functional. I felt so proud when I finished it. It is laughable now but I couldn't believe I had made it. I was still trying to piece the process together from trial and error, youtube and books. I worked from a pattern I made which was, undoubtedly, not symmetrical. I used decent pricking irons but you can see my stitches wandering all over! Had no idea how to turn the corners. I didn't know to hammer the threads to flatten them so they frayed almost immediately.
The next two are more recent efforts. Wild improvements in the grand scheme but still a long way to go. I'm struggling with getting the filler shape consistent and I still have fraying on my threads as I can't seem to get them flat enough. Also, still struggling to get clean backstitching and appropriately spaced stitches at the lugs.
Great thread Fadi! It is good to document where it all started.
@Fadi what a funny forum 😆
Actually with the very limited resources and budget I had in comparison to many, I guess the alien didn’t do that bad for the first try!
I used crappy scrap cow leather, antiqued it to cover up the defects in the edges and came up with a design that would compliment the not so cool leather and tools.
The stitches came out pretty neat for the first time too, although not that obvious in the pic. It was straight neat stitch with no angle.( diamond pricking iron)
I used the 1mm waxed thread, the only thread I knew and grabbed but kept in mind the design to compliment the thickness of the thread.
So I came up with a tribal kilim design to decorate the crappy piece of leather which was not so cheap for me at the time either and even ruining that piece of crappy leather would have been a waste for me...
Having said that I have not made much leather work in the past few months, just browsing YouTube and Instagram mainly.
I tried to emphasize on my creative side rather than technique for the first time, and just enjoy the process...
Ahhh I love this thread! hahahah :)
Here I go...
My very first project was a belt that I still keep (just because it was my first item... ). A quite thick veg tan, [awfuly] hand dyed, I won't speak about the finishings... :P
After that belt, my following project was this bag... I don't know what I was thinking about when I chose the color... and of course, no words about the hand dyeing (OMG)!!
It was made with 2 mm veg tan, lined with some fancy green leather inside (couldn't find pics). The holes were made by hand with my round awl, at that time I didn't know chisels exist hahaha :P ... the thread was very thick, I guest it should be something like +/-0.8 mm polyester thread.
8
My first was a pencase that I had to make in an evening at a friend's place. None of us knew what we were doing. I broke 3 prongs in the stitching chisels, the holes didn't match up so alot of the stitches double up on one side, solution to pierced thread was pull-as-hard-as-you-can, he had seen some ppl do a nice decorative crease along the edge - we used a groover for that.
But it's still in the house and used quite frequently. It's flawed for sure but I like it a lot for nostalgic reasons and if I were to make a new one I'd actually use pretty much the same design:)
What a fun idea!!!
This was my second dog collar. I was super proud 😂
Looking back, not ONE thing was done correctly. And in sense, that was quite a task😂
I made like 20 since then. Leaned a lot :)
Haha! this is great!
I managed to find my pictures that were saved on photobucket (That's how you shared pictures on forums 10 years ago!) and luckily I remembered the password.
Anyway, I made a knife at my friends forge in Canada and I wanted to make a sheath. I got some vegtan locally, used some bow string from a spool I had for making longbows and made all the holes with a Dremel tool. The finish? that's oil based polyurethane wood varnish lol, still going strong to this day!
My first project was a tool pocket to hold the cheap tools I bought from a kit. I followed the curve of the leather for different sized pockets. I didn’t have a stitch pony/clam and didn’t know I needed to keep it straight and not turn and flip it all over the place. That stitching is beyond bad.
I’ll play! Started about 2 1/2 years ago. Watched a YouTube video and thought I’d give leather a try. I didn’t know anything about anything. Bought some leather, thread and sone type of pricking irons (after a few times using them I realized they were straight not even slanted!) from Tandy Online. Had no clue about thread thickness, stitches per inch or what I was doing. That didn’t stop me and who wouldn’t want a wine bottle carrier!
The carrier doesn’t work as planned! It does sit on a shelf in my workshop! Cracks me up whenever I look at it.
Ok Fadi :)
I was really happy when made my first items :))
I did know nothing about leather types. I bought piece of veg tan from Tandy and some oil tan from LeatherGuy. I thought there is no difference what type of leather I use.
My first two items:
Sure, now 10 months later I improved my skills, but I still make dumb mistakes :D