Apologies for the delay in this post. A lot has been happening. In short, 5 years ago we got permission to convert a large barn into a house. Cutting a long story short, the local Council objected to the build and we have been fighting for 4 years plus to get it certified lawful. Thankfully, that happened last week. The fight has cost us over £200,000 - on top of a build cost to-date of £690,000 and a completion estimate of another £200,000. So, the stakes were high but, truthfully, sense prevailed and the liars were defeated. So now, we get the barn completed. There is quite a bit of work that I need to do - the barn is some 740 square metres but I'm only doing some nice bits - I'm panelling one room in English oak in the classic style (rails, stiles and inset panelling) and making various bits of furniture - mainly tables and cabinets. Therefore, for the next few months, I am focussing on timber - at least I know better what I am doing with timber. I'm lucky enough to have a dedicated woodworking area of about 110 square metres and a separate craft room of about 50 square metres. Anyway, pen case. Please see the photographs for the result. I'm only 70% pleased with the outcome. There are a couple of areas where my sewing should have been more accurate. I like the concept of the case but the result has to respect the concept and I don't think it does. I have since bought a vintage leather cigar case from Ebay for me to see how that is constructed as it does not appear to have the protruding side seams. I'm interested to see how it was mad. Live and learn. I also quickly made the second pen holder using a small scrap of oak and inset the leather as you can see. The idea is that my pens can sit in the oak pen holder on my desk and then , when I go out, i transfer them to the leather pen case. Don't look too closely at the pens themselves as I just took some pens that i had been given years ago to fill up both items.

Nice - you deserve the accolades for the work. But I must warn you that you may be on a perilous road. I’m a frustrated perfectionist. It drives my wonderful wife crazy at times because I see faults in things that I have made where few others can. I just warn you that the side effects of the pursuit of excellence include madness. It would be much better to be sufficiently balanced to accept imperfections in my work that, in nature, I believe are wondrous to see.

very nice indeed. We are in search of perfection and it is right that we are critical of our own work in that pursuit. I admire the results of your skiving. I have not practiced sufficiently yet - but have had variable results on what I have done. Leather stretching under the blade and/or uneven skive. I'm pretty good at blade sharpening and so am tending to think its technique and practice that is lacking. All that makes me more admiring of your work

Okay - I hope that I am back on track with this one. Its only a very small item but lots for me to learn from it. The first amendment was, as I mentioned before, to sew along the top of the inner and outer layers before moulding. That has worked well in that it was easier to sew and made positioning the two pieces easier in the mould. The second was to make much better (more complete) top halves of the moulds. My experience is in timber where I followed what i would have done if the pieces had been veneer for instance. Either that or I would have used my vacuum press setup which is a god send for large pieces; I may well try the vacuum press on leather next time. Anyway, top halves re-made and the fit was a lot better in terms of evenness of pressure and shape to the mould. I wet the (top-sewn) leather pieces for a minute or so and then placed in the mould, cramping down nicely. 24 hours later, I released from the mould; the leather was still a little wet (as you can see from the dark brown piece in the photo which was taken out a few minutes ago. I then used contact adhesive between the layers and replaced into the moulds. What this method did on the light brown bottom half in the photo was to make it quite rigid - the lack of which was a complaint of mine with the previous method. When they are all glued and dried, I can then look at the fit between top and bottom halves. I may have to fit a welt between the two top halves to allow for a snug fit of the bottom half into the top. Don't know yet.

If anyone in the UK would like this kind of jog, then I'm happy to make one for the cost of materials and carriage. My guess is £8 plus carriage

Beautiful. Incredible amount of work. I can see what you mean by refinements though (cant see any bl**dy faults at all!) We have a house in NSW and our family there have quite a few horses. The tack room is a place that I enjoy looking around and taking in the earthy smells.

So, I was able to put in a few hours today - very busy until the weekend taking and collecting dogs from vets and specialists. Anyway, the revised moulds are downstairs in the workshop waiting for the PVA to dry. I make my templates out of offcuts wherever possible and its the same for the moulds - they may not look great but they will do the job. Its the only use for B&Q MDF which is so, so poor but the offcuts are cheap. I recut the leather for the four parts (two x top half and two x bottom half). Glued two edges; edge creased two lines and completed the first sewing on the two top halves. Ive left excess at the end of each line so that I can pick that up and make neat when its all together

Right. I talked about issues with prototypes and I hit a dead end. I just was not happy with the quality of what I had done. The moulds and cramping were not good enough and my placement of the leather not quite as exact as it should have been. So, prototype #1 is in the bin and I am on to #2. I am pretty sure that I can use the moulds but have better cramping processes. I'm not giving up by any means and this item will continue. You learn more from your mistakes than your successes. By hell, I must have learned a lot over my life

@paul p Paul, I'm not quite sure if the issue is just being left-handed (sinister in Latin). I am left handed in writing; I went to a posh grammar school where you had to use a FP. I didnt have an issue. I used a fountain pen throughout my business life - although less and less as hand writing, typing pools and secretaries went out and personal computers came in. Again, I didn't really have an issue. I had Parkers, Ormerods, WH Smith own brand and then Watermans - so it wasnt just the more expensive brands and I never knowingly bought anything designed for us sinisters. My only point here is look at all the issues and see where your personal hand writing issues lie. Good luck

I got mine from Yucraft - a guy named Wayne. Very happy with the machine and the price. Very helpful. Here is a link to an article from a user Yucraft creasing machine - Leather Tools - Leatherworker.net

its a very interesting subject. It seems to me that, as anything that we do has an environmental impact, we can and should do whatever is practically possible for each of us. our new house should be self sufficient in terms of electricity with solar , ground exchange and battery storage. However, each of those components are industrial processes and I couldn't reasonable ask each supplier to ask their suppliers for an environmental impact statement specific to those products. Nica's point on design is interesting in its own right. Everything we make is a "copy" or "inspired" by something else. I dont think that there is virtually nothing totally, totally original that we could make. Take a watch strap; could I make a strap that is 100% unlike anything that has been designed before? I come from a long cabinet making hobby/business. We were a hobby then a business and now, in retirement, its back to a hobby. We made hundreds of pieces and each was, to a larger or smaller degree, copying other pieces. We had a very good customer who loved Greene and Greene items and we made exact copies of G&G originals for him. Another loved UK Arts & Crafts and we used originals as a starting point but they were always recognisably different from an original I'm not good enough to design my own leather items and so I "copy" pieces. They may be Philip's Turenne bag or a Hermes bag or whatever. There are always differences - mostly unintended. Where I can sleep at night is that all the items that I make, furniture or leather, doesn't not have an original stamp on it (e.g. G&G) but has my makers stamp and an attribution explaining what the original was; who designed it; what timbers or leather I have used.

Next stage on the build. Clearly, one of the issues with any prototype is that you are probably going to be refining what you do as you go through the process. So, as you can see from the picture, I have moulded the two bottom halves. This has brought up issues and the need for solutions. the big issue is that the moulded pieces are not very stiff and will not make a case that's sufficiently stiff to my mind. That's no doubt a combination of the type of leather and its thickness. However, as I don't want a thick, thick case, I have decided to insert three more plastic test tubes permanently into the bottom half. So that the pens have some comfort and don't rattle, i will glue thin leather into each tube. That lack of stiffness also means that I cant go ahead with my original design for the top half (which was for leather moulded rather like the bottom but slightly wider to slip over the bottom). I'm going to have to make a simple wood mould for the top. Thats not an issue but I will post a picture when Ive done that - hopefully later today. The last point from the prototypes is that I should have glued and stitched the outer and inner leather before moulding. I didn't do this on the first of the halves but did on the second. Lesson learn t for the top halves anyway.

Im no expert but the Waterman pens do what I think they should do. My Cross pens are roller ball (probably a hanging offence to fountain pen afficiandos) but I found i needed a pen with red ink when editing large documents

I'm looking to use these materials: 1. Saffiano. I bought this from "buyleatheronline" which is an Italian company. As far as I know good from bad, I'm happy with the quality. However, just beware of the prcies shown per hide as you have to add on taxes and carriage; it adds up 2. Cordura. I usually use pig, lamb or goat skin but wanted to try something different. This Cordura (bought from AE Market here in the UK) doesn't feel as soft as skins obviously but I have to say that i like the feel. 3. Hardware. From leathercraftpatterns.com. Again, never been disappointed - its all been very high quality stuff. I think its available in different finishes but look them up. Daniel is a very nice, very helpful guy. I will be buying two more D loops per bag so that I can permanently attach a handle and offer a ring for a longer shoulder strap

Very nice indeed. Such a simple design belies the need for extreme accuracy in the making - there is nowhere to hide the smallest mistake. I wonder for how long will we need to have a purse pouch for coins? From the days of carrying the old, very heavy coins to not carrying even paper notes, it is all change (if you get it). I've just been "enrolled" into Apple Pay. God knows what that is all about but it seems it can act as my debit/credit card. So perhaps, we might be driving to the time where we don't even need too many card slots.

Thanks for that. Making a plain top mould would be very easy for me but I would like to try something a little more intricate. My current thinking is to mould a top half (two layers) over an already moulded bottom half over the mould. With cling film over the moulded bottom half. We shall see. My pens are nothing special - their sentimental value far exceeds their financial worth. I've got three Waterman's and two Cross's that mean something and that I would like to look after

I have ordered quite a few skins from them - particularly saffiano and lining leathers. Never had anything but good. Just one tip - the headline price looks good but then you have to add taxes and delivery.

It certainly wasn’t easy to source. Eventually, I found 2 skins on “buyleatheronline” which is an Italian source. They were the last 2 that they had in stock and, in fact, contacted me to say that the skins were not exact matching colours. That meant I could not use them on the original project as lining for briefcases. For that, I have bought some burnt orange Cordura which should be more hardwearing. That left me with the skins for small projects. Good hunting.

@VII XCIV Brilliant that you worked it out and solved it yourself. If it ever happens again, you can sort it straight away

I feel your frustration. I am a relative beginner and have gone through several periods where my stitching is irregular. I think that Philip covers it quite well in saying that it is all about a consistent repeat process. Easier to say than do but practice is the only answer that I have. Consistency in terms of the angles in which you insert each needle; consistency in the angles in which you being out the needles; take care over the position of the front and back threads so that they do not cross the other thread except in the back cast (if you are doing that). Then try and apply consistent force when pulling the threads tighter. Every session (I am in the middle of one now) I start really slowly to ensure precision and then build up a bit of speed as my muscle memory kicks in. My gut feel (please don't bet your house on this) is that it is likely to be the same as when I was getting your kind of issue. For me, it was angles, making sure the front threads did not cross over (apart from the "cross" made in the needles), pulling down the thread (that you just inserted from the rear) at the front and then inserting the previous front thread at an upwards angle. Once you have had all the comments and maybe gone back to basics with Philip'ds video, see if you need anymore help. Perhaps the best way would be to have a brief skype call with someone so that they can see what you are doing and you can see what they are doing. I'm sure you will get more experienced people than me, but I would be happy to spend some time helping. I can assure you that, at some time, I'm going to need some help to stop going insane. Good luck, Martin (UK)