Well, sure enough, the leather was mostly dry in the morning!
With the flask removed, it was nicely rigid and held the form
nicely.
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Now
it was time to dye and finish the leather (as I was instructed by Helpful
Salesperson At The Leather Store). I put on some latex gloves and
began applying the dye. The process was actually pretty simple,
although I'm not skilled enough yet to get a completely even color
result. However, the slight variations are quite visually appealing. This
shot is after the first coat of dye.
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Here
is the pouch after a second coat of dye and two coats of a satin leather
finisher (to lock the dye in place and stop it from rubbing off).
You can see here I did a couple of test stitching patterns, ultimately
settling on a nice cross-stitch pattern.
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Speaking
of stitching, it was that time! I carefully drew precise drawings of
where my holes would go. Unfortunately, you can't see the marks on
the paper, but you can see how I taped it to the bottom. Then I used
the sharp point of my compass to make small indentations which would later
serve as a guide for the drill (no awls were harmed in the making of this
pouch!).
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Here
you can see the imprints for the holes to be drilled.
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And
here is after drilling the holes.
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The
stitching process can be tricky. As the leather is quite tough, I
followed Helpful
Salesperson At The Leather Store's advice, and used long needle-nose
pliers to pull the needle & thread through each hole. This was
especially necessary in this case, where I couldn't really get my hand
inside the formed case to reach the needle without tools.
I completed the bottom stitching. Then, using a slightly wider
cross-stitch pattern, did the sides. Here's the left side complete.
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The
right side, complete. |
Next
I wanted to do the strap that holds the tongue of the flap in place.
This was a little tricky, as I wanted the leather to bow upward slightly
to accommodate the tongue of the flap,
so drilling the holes took concentration and three hands.
It's hard to see, but I had to cut my needles down a bit to clear the
back of the pouch. I used a wire cutter to simply cut them in
half, and I had a bit more room to work with inside the pouch.
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The
completed 'flap-strap.'
I then did what I consider the be the hardest part of the
project. I sewed the top flap to the back piece of leather.
This is just another reason to use a continuous piece of leather for your
back piece and flap, rather than splitting into two like I did.
Because the flap was formed to wrap over it made it very difficult to get
to the inside of the pouch to pull a needle through. Eventually it
came together nicely, though.
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Ok,
now that the stitching was finished, it was a relatively simple matter of
attaching the neck/shoulder strap to the pouch using rivets. Here's
where my flask-shaped wood piece actually came in handy! I slipped the
piece of wood into the pouch, and the flat part of the rivet on the inside
of the pouch had something to butt up against when I used the setting tool
to hammer the two parts together around the D-Ring clip.
If you are somehow without an Amazing Flask-Shaped Wood Piece,
you will just have to settle for cutting a small piece of wood for the
rivet to rest against.
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Once
that was done, the Flask-Pouch was complete! (apart from filling with
spirits!)
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A
most satisfactory conclusion to this epic saga of intrigue, lust, and
crime... Er,
two day project! |
This
is the first draft of this journal. When I have a free moment, I
will make the images clickable for high-resolution versions of the photos.
In the next few weeks I plan on posting the pattern if you care to make
one yourself, including tools needed, materials required, and exact
measurements including stitch patterns.
So please stop by again soon! I hope you enjoyed the tale.
Spectrum
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Return to Day 1 of Leather Pouch Flask!. |