Tricorn hat / Pirate hat

A friend asked me to make them a tricorn hat for a pirate costume a while ago, but before I agreed to it I wanted to make one for myself to make sure it was an achievable goal. So after I successfully finished my Indy hat, I started to have a think about how I’d make this tricorn hat. I decided that I was going to make a modified version of the Indy hat for him.

Adjusted hat pattern

Prep Work

1. I printed out the pattern on paper in the size I needed it for his head and got him to pop it on to make sure the fit was fine. A little loose is fine

2. We then made adjustments to the pattern while it was on his head, deciding how much to shorten the crown and how much to widen the brim

3. I added 5cm to the brim, and marked 2cm from the bottom of the crown

4. I assembled the adjusted pattern and trialed it on the client’s head. It’s a perfect fit and the brim is a good width

5. Now that the pattern had been finalised, I lay it all out on leather and cut it out roughly to size

6. I dyed, buffed, and finished the leather, making it ready for the final cut

Assembly

1. I placed the paper templates on the leather, and lightly scratched around them with a scratch awl, carefully cutting the outlines

2. I left the templates on the cuts, and marked any holes (e.g. I have stitching holes marked on my template), then punched them out

3. Putting the brims flesh side together, and sandwiching the crown gusset between the layers, I stitched around the brim. This was very tricky because saddle stitching requires two hands, and you might be holding the hat with one, so do what you can to make it comfortable (I rigged a pulley with a bulldog clip and kitchen twine to hold the hat up while I stitched)

4. One of the last steps in assembly is stitching the crown. The way you stitch it is up to personal preference. I like the turned edge where the stitch line is on the inside. Once that’s done, turn the hat outside in

5. The brims need to be attached to the crown. I decided to do a double attachment. The inner brim is attached to the crown by a rivet, and then four holes will make an X-mark to attach both brim layers to the crown

6. With the brim attached, I will attach a strip of cloth to the brim so that accessories can be hung from it

7. I stitched the fabric strip onto the front brim, and made slits in the brim for the fabric to tuck in between the two brims

8. Next I punched holes all around the outer brim and refastened the X to keep the outer brim in the correct position. Then with an awl I pierced the second brim layer as I saddle stitched. After the whole brim was stitched, I trimmed off the excess to make both layers flush

9. After the stitching is done, a quick dye and burnish on the edges and the hat is complete!

Brim layers sandwiching crown gusset

Stitching the brims to the crown

One brim layer riveted. Holes for X punched

Brim being awled prior to saddle stitching

Valet Tray

I was getting pretty tired of coming home and emptying my pockets on the kitchen counter, so wanted to make a nice home for my pocket contents.

I mocked one up out of paper. It’s 23 x 23cm. It seems to fit everything I carry on me. This will also serve as my template.

Now to pick a colour. I have quite a selection. I decided to go with Fiebings Pro Light Brown, followed by a light Dark Brown coat.

Next steps were to finish the leather. After it’s been dyed there is still some dye pigment left on the surface. These need to be buffed off, otherwise you’d get dye rub off. Buffing is just wiping vigorously with a cloth. Then I sealed the leather by applying Carnauba Creme and buffing it again.

I cut the leather to size and made slits where the tabs would turn. At the end of every slit I made a small circular hole to prevent that area from wearing too much. The tabs I rounded with corner punches, and punched a hole in the centre where the rivet would go.

To mark the corresponding hole on the back of the tray I bent the tabs into position, clipped them in place, and marked with a pencil where the hole should go. Simply marking the centre in a mirror position from the tabs doesn’t work, because leather doesn’t behave like paper.

I put my mark in the middle of the tray.

After all the holes were punched it was time to finish the edges. I beveled the top side first. The bottom still has a rough finish so I slicked the edges with water and beveled the bottom.

The entire under surface I slicked down with Tokonole for a nice smooth finish to lay down the fibres nicely.

I dyed the edges with a cotton tip, gave it an initial water slicking, then a final slick and polish with Tokonole. Once all the edges were done, I set the rivets, and we’re done!

Roo Ring Binder

I’d never made a ring binder before, and am quite intrigued by book binding, so this was my baby step in that direction. I used black chrome-tanned Kangaroo leather.

1. Cardboard cut to size

2. Graph paper stabiliser

3. Roo panels cut oversized

6. Mark mechanism holes

Steps:

1. I started out by cutting card board to size. Nothing special about the card board, it was just the packaging material from a set of Ikea drawers

2. I pasted graph paper behind the three panels to keep them aligned, then trimmed off the excess

3. I cut two roo panels 1cm bigger all around

4. Now it was time to assemble the whole thing. This is the point at which I should probably have stamped my logo, but I completely forgot. Oh well, maybe on the next one.

5. I glued the front panel to the card boards and smoothed out any air bubbles with a bone folder

6. I punched through the back of the leather to mark the ring binder holes

7. With the mechanism holes clearly marked, I glued the inner panel to the card boards, once again smoothing out any air bubbles

8. Once the glue had set I used the outer holes as a guide to punch all the way through the inner leather

9. I punched the stitching holes with pricking irons. On this one I used 3mm KL French irons

10. I stitched with black Vinymo MBT #8 thread. The total thickness was probably about 1-2 mm

11. To finish off I attached some M3 nuts and bolts to fasten the binder mechanism, and rounded the corners with an corner punch

7. Glue inner panel

10. Stitch around perimeter

11. Attach ring mechanism

11. Round corners

Safari Bag

This bag was for my sister. She had some dimension requirements, and one request of “lots of pockets, including in the flap” to paraphrase. So I got to sketching.

I’m never quite sure how much someone wants to be involved in the process when I make them things. Maybe she thought I was bugging her too much about a simple bag, or maybe she thought “hey this is bespoke so I have all the input!”. Who knows.

This bag was a real challenge. I thought I knew how I wanted to construct it, but I changed my mind at the very last minute. I made a paper prototype, saw where dimensions needed to be tweaked, and then got to prepping the leather.

I learned to always, always, check how much dye you have left. I thought I had enough. I did not. Almost 3/4 way through the second coat I completely ran out. I was sponging the sides of the container to get as much as possible, but in the end I had to place a rushed order for more. That’s the danger of letting dye dry, then going back to fix it. That’s also the danger of dyeing in the first place. If this was a paying customer, I’d have gotten a pre-dyed piece of leather. I managed to cut around the worst transition points, or hide them in pockets, but still, lesson learned.

I had decided to make this a proper challenge:

• use 3mm french irons (I’d just recently received Kevin Lee’s irons and hadn’t had a chance to use them yet)

• use vinymo mbt 8 (a thread I’ve only heard good things about, but had zero experience with)

I think I finally learned how to stitch correctly with this project. The number of times I looked up Little Leather Co’s story on how to saddle stitch will have completely skewed his Instagram Insight numbers for that week. Oh yes, did I mention that there was a time limit on this?

When you’re in a rush you tend to make mistakes, even when you’re careful. I had a disastrous issue when trying to edge dye the flap prior to burnishing. Yes, I cried. Then I sucked it up, trimmed the edge, and got on with the bag. This was another very valuable lesson learned.

I’d never tried a full gusset, so hey, why not just wrap everything I’ve never done into one project? A challenge is a challenge. It turned out okay. I should have added the enchapes before stitching the gusset, but to be honest I had no idea how they would turn out, where they would sit on the gusset, would I need to trim the final gusset when it was done? It was all up in the air, so I just did it afterwards, with great difficulty.

The drop liner, thank god, I made a prototype of. It was too large. A great lesson was learned on how fabric behaves compared to leather even at exactly the same dimensions. I made the final liner out of linen, which is a lovely material to use for liners. I think I might even rip out the liner in my Ovi bag and replace it with nice linen.

Build album here.

Brush Roll

A passing comment “…perhaps you can make me a paint brush scroll…” turned into a real project. It’s a straight-forward piece, no different from a tool roll. So why was I so keen on making this? Well, because it was for my cousin, a fellow artist and all around fantastic person. She’s the sort that truly values things people have made with their hands, and I selfishly wanted a “Ra” to be part of her collection.

I made this one out of sheep leather because I wanted it to be nice and soft, floppy enough to roll up tight if she wanted to. I think the natural colour on the inside works well so that the brushes stand out a little more.

I ummed and aahed about the thread colour, wondering if I should match it to the inside natural, or the outside mahogany. I don’t completely regret my decision, but I do wish I had stitched a lot better. I learned on this project the correct way to set threads on very thin leathers like sheep and goat. I mostly got it right, but the places where I got it wrong I wish the thread were lighter to hide my unsightly mistakes. The next time I work with sheep will be better.

Build album here.

D&D Condition Rings

The world is full of people with brilliant ideas, and sometimes we are lucky to see those ideas acted on. I’ve been watching Critical Role for a while, a YouTube series about “a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sitting around and playing Dungeons and Dragons” and one of the nicest things about it is the creativity of their fan base. Often fans will send them items to use in their games. One such creation was a set of rings that showed what condition a character was under e.g. Poisoned.

We had been using the rings off drink bottles, and rubber bands to mark the minis to remember that there was a condition on them, but when I saw what a fan had sent to Matt Mercer for Critical Role, I knew I had to try making something like that. I got permission from the person who made the original ones, so I don’t feel too badly about blatantly copying their work.

Build album here.

Passport Wallet

As someone with multiple passports, and who likes to be organised, I wanted a nice travel organiser. My criteria were:

• it needs to fit multiple travel docs like passports

• it needs to fit multiple types of currency

• it needs to hold the boarding pass in enough of a shape that it doesn’t crumple by the time I board

• it needs to hold any declaration documents for immigration

• it needs to hold a pen

• it needs to hold my Kenyan ID and any lounge access cards I might be so fortunate to have

I had some extra leather from my Ovi bag which I used as the outer, but for the lining I chose to use natural sheep leather.

Only time will tell if I made the right decision in choosing this lining material. I’m happy with the design insofar as my criteria are concerned. If I could make it shorter, I would. Perhaps a v2 in a few years might be a good idea.

More pictures can be found here.

Indy Hat

I’ve never found a hat that fit me, but I’ve always wanted a cowboy hat. I had some time, and I needed a new project anyway. I looked up lots of DIY tutorials for leather hats, one of them was a YouTube video run by a man in a loin cloth. That was extremely disturbing. I thought to myself “Ra, this one is going to be tricksy while patterning on your own head, just like that dress you wanted to make, but couldn’t pin it just right because it was on yourself, and you had to twist and turn to get to the spot, which flattened out when you got to it. It’ll be like that. Do us a favour and buy a pattern if you can find one”.

I’m glad I listened to myself then, because not long after I stumbled upon an “Indiana Jones Hat” pattern made by DieselPunk. It looked like what I wanted, and was cheap, so why not! I bought the pattern, picked the smallest one, and set about assembling the paper version to check if it fit my head. It did!

I wasted no time in picking a dye colour and preparing the leather. The worst part about the whole process was that I needed to punch each hole with a round punch. One. At. A. Time. What a nightmare! I should’ve bought a good round punch beforehand, but I was in a rush so made do with a scratch awl. I assembled it slightly differently to how he does it, and I think the final results look rather good. I’d change up how I finished the rim, and might even try an accent colour next time. Now that I have a hat pattern I can make as many as I want, and they’ll ALL fit me!

Build album here.

The Ovi bag

I wanted to make a new hand bag. The requirements were that it should fit my drink bottle, umbrella, long wallet when I carried it, and a few odds and ends. My cousin Ovi (yes, that’s her nickname) has a really nice bag, there’s nothing special about it per se, it’s just simple and functional. So I asked her to take pictures of her bag from all sorts of angles, and I aimed to replicate it with minor changes to fit my criteria.

For a first, this bag turned out amazingly. I made oh so many mistakes. The drop liner material was cheap calico material. I thought “Hey people carry around totes of calico, surely it’ll be strong enough for a liner”. It’s mostly fine, but the stitching has come undone in some high wearing areas. I plan to redo the liner when I have some down time and I can muster up the courage to pull the bag apart.

The bag is a unit though. It’s been through all the crazy weather Melbourne can throw at it and come out looking fabulous. I love the dye job, the first very large piece I’ve done. I had intended this bag to be prototype for my sister’s Safari bag, and if it turned out okay I had planned to send this one to her. But I liked the colour too much to send it her way, and I’d rather give her a version 2 than a prototype.

Build album for the Ovi bag can be found here.

Card Wallets

Quite often a new leather worker would ask “I’m new to the whole thing, what should I make first to learn some skills?”, and a bunch of people from the community would answer “A card wallet because it’s a small project and will teach you accurate templating, cutting, gluing, stitching, and edge finishing skills to name a few”. This answer would crop up so many times. I did make a card wallet as one of the first things when I did that class so many months ago, but those panels were already cut to size.

I decided that I wanted to make one from scratch. How convenient that one of my friends who had come to visit and check out our new house wanted one when I showed him mine. We won’t touch on the fact that he never came to pick it up, so I started using it as my EDC. Let’s just gloss over that bit.

You know what’s really great? When you’re having a chat to your dentist who happens to be incredibly friendly and interested in your hobbies, and she asks you to make her an exact same card wallet. I got the chance to tweak my design a little when I made hers.

Build album for the first one here, and the second one here.

Itty bitty work

Another trade I did was when a friend who has a 3D printer agreed to print a mini for me. I already had an .stl file, so it all came down to what he needed. His dad had given him a watch, and my friend wanted a nice watch strap to complement it. Having never made a watch strap before, I was very much up for the challenge.

Watch prototype

Final watch strap

This time around I wanted to make a prototype. I’m glad I did, because it gave me a bit of an idea of how hard this was going to be. With small goods, all mistakes are amplified. If something is misaligned, you can fudge the mistake and hide it on a bag, but not so much on small items like wallets and watch straps.

For a first time, I’m not too disappointed, but I know I can definitely do better. Build album here.

Notebook Cover

We finally killed the big bad guy in our D&D campaign, and it was now time for the new arc to begin. How convenient that I ran out of pages on my old notebook and needed a new one.

I bought a Leuchtturm1917 and used it to measure out the cover.

I thought I might use my new tiny ensso fountain pen, so I made sure the loop would be the right size. This would also be the first time I used my stamp.

Next time I think I might attach the loop a little differently. This sleeve is going to last me a very long time though, and it smells great!

Build album here.

Trades

I highly value people’s talents and creativity, as I hope people would value mine.

I needed a logo and had an idea in mind, and my designer friend was in need of an iPad sleeve. It only made sense that we would make a trade.

It’s certainly not the prettiest thing in the world, but it’s a start. I completely messed up the depth required for this and ended up putting side gussets in. It was a little stiff, but I hope it gets softer with use.

In exchange he designed my logo. The bull signifies the animal that the leather comes from, my stubbornness, and if you want to push it, my star sign. The horns are arranged to spell “Ra” in arabic. I think it turned out rather nicely.

The build album for the iPad sleeve is here.

Bits and bobs

Pen knife slip case

Tiny turned bag

Tiny hat

Burnisher pencil topper

Sometimes you just want to make little things that require little thought and scratch that itch to work with your hands. There was no real purpose behind any of these, except maybe for the swiss knife, that probably needed a sleeve.

More pictures of the knife sleeve can be found here.
Tiny hat’s build album can be found here.
Tiny bag’s build album can be found here.
Pencil topper build album can be found here.

Leather Keysmart

I bought a keysmart a long time ago, maybe when it was on Kickstarter? Anyway, it’s a really good key organiser; no jangling, and all the keys are nice and contained.

My partner’s keys, on the other hand, were on a key ring, all dangling, jangling, his USB stick on a thong getting all tangled. It was a mess.

It only made sense to make him something. I sketched out a few ideas, but at the end of it all I couldn’t get past the elegant solution that Keysmart had already come up with. So, yes, I blatantly traced around my own one.

At the time I was in discussions with a fellow leather worker on his dyeing techniques. He recommended cleaning the leather with rubbing alcohol prior to dyeing. I’m always up for experimenting, so I decided to make use of the swatches for this project.

Using just leather wasn’t rigid enough, so I cut up the lid of an ice cream container and sandwiched that between two layers of leather to give it some firmness.

More pictures here.

The Dopp Kit

I got to a point where I started looking around the house for things I needed. My partner didn’t have a toiletries bag since his last one made of PU Leather had finally started falling apart and was flaking. It only made sense to make him one and learn things in the process.

The new challenges I’d face for this were stitching a zip, and making boxed corners. This was also going to take patterning practice.

My initial idea was to line it on the inside with some umbrella material. After trialling it I realised that I was out of my depth, for now, with liners, so I ended up slicking the inside with water and burnishing it to lay the fibres down. I think I also may have used tokonole to slick it down, which is how I learned that when you wet a tokonole-slicked surface, it becomes tacky. It goes away when dry, so I’ll just have to remind my partner to not put wet things inside.

I think I did alright with this one. I’m certain that my next one will be better. I made this bag to fit a long toothbrush in a travel container. That’s the longest thing that will go in here. His cologne bottle is also quite wide, so I needed to make sure it would fit that. The surface was sealed with Resolene, and though I got a little flack for that from some leather working community members, I don’t regret it. This bag will very likely be in wet places, so why not protect the surface.

Build album is here.

D&D friends need swag too

The glorious game of Dungeons & Dragons inspired me to make a few things for my DM and party members. The usual dice tray, dice cup, dice bag seemed like good quick and easy projects. I didn’t want it too basic though; it should at least have some uniqueness about it. By this time I had joined the /r/Leathercraft subreddit and was getting plenty of inspiration from there.

I turned my previous handbag into a lovely, soft, floppy dicebag for a party mate. Hers was overflowing. A few steam punk charms to add a little bling to an otherwise boring brown worked out well. She loved it.

The natural dice tray was the simplest, but instead of the standard corners, I made it into a sort of swastika arrangement.

The kangaroo dice bag was also pretty easy. It was essentially a turned bag, with eyelets to thread the thong.

Slightly more complex was this dice cup. I made it out of three panels, trying to get the pattern just right. I still like it.

The most complicated of the lot was this dice tray that rolls up with the cups on either ends, leaving enough of a hollow inside for your dice. I found this design on reddit and shamelessly copied it.

I finished these just after christmas so presented them as holiday gifts. The party was very pleased (I think).

My first few projects

I’m not entirely sure why I got into leatherworking, but I do remember how. I had signed up for a class that went for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, one of those spend-a-few-hours-here-and-take-home-whatever-you’ve-made things. It didn’t cost much, but was a good taster for what leatherworking was about.

First wallet, black kangaroo leather, in construction

I came back with a little card wallet and a belt. I was pretty excited with the afternoon’s work. I think that energy and enthusiasm stayed with me until I watched a whole ton of leather working videos, most of them by Ian Atkinson.

I made a list of all the tools he used when he was making something I found interesting. Not knowing who else to ask advice from, I decided to get pretty much what he was using: Seiwa diamond chisels in 3mm and 4mm, and a few other basic things.

This was enough to get me started.

First solo project, reversible belt

I found a local supplier (I had no idea how lucky that was) and went in. The place was huge! I was easily overwhelmed! Wanting to keep the costs down I asked for a veg tan side.

With strap cutter and dyes in hand, my first project solo was going to be a reversible belt. I did not anticipate the amount of stitching, especially for a first time project. The dye job was off, the belt wasn’t perfectly straight, all in all plenty of disastrous mistakes. Thankfully my partner loves me enough to wear it and not be ashamed by it.