Stitching - Tumblr Posts
request: aesthetic for a friend of mine
“and someday, i hope my sadness will be replaced with something beautiful”
This project is finished!! Don't like it? Fight Me! (Not really)
I need to sleep
Here are progress shots of a leather helm I just finished up. Another post with photos of it finished will follow.
I did the designing in Rhino, which is a 3D modeling program I've been using ever since architecture school. It was unexpectedly frustrating to find a 3D scan of a head, but I finally found one on Thingiverse with a creative commons license, which I am grateful for. I really wanted to get the geometry for a head right, that was the whole point.
To be honest, this particular design I was thinking of mostly as a test or proof of concept. I'm planning on making more in a similar manner, and I figure I'll work on more compelling shaping and detailing for those, but I wanted to just make a smooth one first to make sure it worked. I didn't want it to be completely plain, though, so once I'd gotten it cut I punched holes for purposes of putting spikes through.
Then I had the question of what color to do. I figured I could just do a plain black, and with all the spikes it would be extravagant but not out of genre for punk/goth/industrial or something. But I wasn't super excited about that, and I realized that there were 6 sections, and after some agreeing suggestions from a friend, I decided to go for a huge rainbow. Which means it's completely ridiculous, and a good contender for the most outlandish piece I've made to date.
For future versions, I think I'll try with thicker leather. I also figure I'll do some toying with making the pieces fold/bend like spiky scales or something, which would give me something more in keeping with many other of my designs. And maybe also some different patterns of breaking up the surface into panels. And definitely riveting the pieces together, that would be much faster.
Anyway, next up will be photos of the final piece. But not now, tomorrow. It's time for bed.
I haven't designed a leather bracelet in a long time, like 2 or 3 years I think. But I had this idea that I wanted to wear around for the Halloween season, so I drew it up and made it today. Unusually for me, I hand-cut the whole thing. Sadly, I messed up on scaling when tracing it from my computer to the leather, and it came out a bit too small for me. So I've posted it up for sale on Etsy here. I'm planning on heading in to laser-cut more things tomorrow, so I'll probably make a copy for myself then. This one will fit a wrist at 6.5 inches around. It's 2.5 inches across at its widest point. It's available for immediate shipping.
I’ve been wearing this leather cuff most days since this last Halloween, so 8 months now. It’s the same pattern as this one, but finished with lots of neatsfoot oil instead of a matte acrylic clear coat like I typically do. The neatsfoot oil darkened the leather significantly over the span of a couple weeks, but it’s been pretty much unchanged since then. Originally the two sides of the bracelet were light green like this one, and un-dyed plain tan leather. The light green dye didn’t look very green anymore once the oil darkened it, so that’s probably not a combination I would repeat in the future, unless I specifically wanted this kind of earthy vaguely-green light brown. (Which would work in certain aesthetics.)
This mask is a bit weird to try to describe. I had an idea for an abstract creepy mask, and I put it together by hand from the weird bits of leather in my scrap pile. Since the pieces come from different hides, they’ve got more variation than I usually go for from one piece to the next. I left it the natural un-dyed tan color to show that off.
The slashed openings let you see through with some occlusion, like shutter shades.
I do like how it turned out, and if other people do too I'll probably make more in this vein. This one will be unique though!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/711448362/irregular-contours-mask
Made a respirator-type face mask for daily pandemic wear.
The tan one is the final updated design. It’s got brass mesh sewn behind the openings, so it breathes quite well. It’s not intended to be PPE on its own, but rather to be worn over a fabric or disposable mask.
The black and green one was my first prototype, where I tried adding fabric to the inside. I really liked the aesthetic of the bright green showing through behind the black, but I had to kill the concept for two reasons. One, permanently attaching a fabric filter inside a mask that you can’t really wash, is a bad idea from a medical perspective. Two, I wasn’t able to attach it in a way that I was super happy with. The center panel is sewn in at the sides, which is nice and permanent, but the curvature of the mask there caused it to bunch up and look awkward; the side panels are glued in place, which honestly is probably fine, I trust this glue, but I’m not happy with it mostly on principle.
The final face mask design is available for sale on my Etsy. It’d be cool to do more color combinations, feel free to ask for a custom one!
Here’s a codpiece that someone ordered, in the natural un-dyed color of the leather. Though the oil I rub into it to make the straps supple darkens it noticeably, so I gave the codpiece some oil as well to bring it closer to that color.
This style of codpiece is available on my Etsy shop here.
This was a first attempt at making a cuff bracelet wallet. An idea that a friend had suggested back when needing a little pocket to store cash and ID while going to a club was a problem that one could have.
I had fun with the pattern on the front side, though it turned out looking more like a sofa than I’d expected. The next iteration will probably be rainbow stripes or a paw print or something like that.
The basic premise turned out pretty reasonably, and this let me figure out some edits I’d need to make for the next version. (Like, one big pocket with one opening is not the best, I need to have it open on both sides, and maybe break it up into smaller pocket slots. And preferably use a thinner leather on the interior. And make it significantly looser, IDs don’t bend very well.) (Also, turns out white thread darkens when you repeatedly pull it through laser-cut stitching holes.)
I’d made this figuring I’d keep it for myself, but it turned out I got the sizing about a half inch too small, so it’s too tight for me to wear comfortably. So if anyone’s got a wrist size 6.5″ or smaller, feel free to make me an offer for this. I suspect I’ll need to make it rather wider to actually fit an ID without bending it too badly, so might not fulfill its intended utility, but it’s still a cool cuff bracelet.
2 layers of 4 oz vegetable-tanned leather, cut with a laser cutter, dyed and stitched by hand, with mink oil to soften it up, and finished with an acrylic-based clear coat. Snaps are nickel-plated brass.
Made a black version of my steampunk-ish respirator mask (previously seen here), also wanted to show it with the option for attaching with just a simple cord to knot instead of the full buckle arrangement. 4 oz vegetable-tanned leather, laser-cut, dyed and sewn together by hand, with brass screen beneath the grating. Not protective on its own, but you can wear it over a disposable or cloth mask. Available on my Etsy shop!
Whoops I forgot to post this plague doctor hood. I finished it up around the end of May, then it sold off of my Etsy while I was in media blackout.
This one has room for glasses to be worn underneath, clear acrylic lenses, ventilation through holes and grommets in the beak, and ear cups for comfort (no more squishing your ears when you lace up the hood!) with a bunch of holes for uninterrupted hearing.
I really like showing off the un-dyed color of the leather when using this sort of aesthetic. It’s got just a light application of oil to darken it slightly (this hide was very light tan to start), then it’s finished with a matte acrylic clear coat.
I’d made a similar plague doctor mask years ago (here) as one of my first big whole-head hood style masks, and this design built on a bunch of stuff I’ve learned since then. I went for a more visually coherent eye design; used rivets for the long seams to reduce the assembly time; and I tried out the ear cup idea, building on the deer head mask previously.
Here’s a dark brown version of the Airship Mechanic respirator mask I designed recently, on request of a customer.
The brown here is a dye that I got fairly recently. It’s a different type of dye than I normally use, and it worked pretty well, though I’m not sure I liked working with it as much. I went for a matte finish, which I think goes well with this aesthetic.
This design previously seen here and here, and available on my etsy here.
A black version of my plague doctor hood. (Previously.)
I went for a lustrous finish coat on this, with silvered lenses that block off all view of the inside. I tend to prefer matte finishes on light colored pieces, but black does look really nice when it’s shiny.
This hood has ear-cups for comfort (with holes for good hearing), ventilation holes on the underside and side of the beak, and enough room inside to wear glasses underneath!
Designed by myself, laser-cut out of 4 oz vegetable-tanned leather, then formed, dyed, finished, riveted and sewn together by hand. It’s available here.
A bit outside my normal genre, but I was really happy with this. It was largely a test of process--sculpting the leather onto a positive formwork, which lets you really stretch the leather around the features. I'm also always a fan of projects that show off imperfections in the leather, like the scars on the surface of the upper portion, and the natural edge of the hide.
It's got minimal holes for vision and breathing. I almost left this one without any holes for eyes, because it fit so snugly on my face and it was a really interesting sensation. My facial hair sorta pushes it away from my nose, but when it's worn tightly the nostril breathing holes line up pretty well.
4 oz vegetable-tanned leather, wet-formed and sewn by hand. The upper part is dyed brown and finished with a matte clear coat, the lower part is painted gold.
It is available on my Etsy shop! And for the next 5 hours everything there is still on sale for 20% off!
Fancy padded collar! This one is an updated version of a previous geometric design of mine.
The main difference the commissioner wanted here was the D-ring with integrated O-ring. I hadn’t had a chance to use them before, they jingle in a really satisfying way.
The main difference on my end was splitting the top strap into two pieces, which let it fit into my laser cutter cleanly instead of needing weird workarounds. Also, bridging the D-ring with a small separate piece actually seems to work more cleanly than bending the top strap over it. (And I got to fix a lot of fit/size and material/finishing issues from the original one. The differences are hard to see, but trust me, it’s way better.)
Main straps are 9-10 oz vegetable-tanned leather, liner is 4 oz chrome-tanned leather. Strap details are laser-cut, then they get trimmed, dyed, burnished and finished by hand. Stitching is also all hand-done. Top strap is 1″ wide, total width 2″.
Golden Curse mask.
I made this mask I think about 2 years ago (here), but was unhappy with the eyes, so I opened them up and reshaped them recently. The mask was sculpted directly onto a form (testing out that process, which is different than my typical), which let me get more intense curvature and shaping into the leather than normal. I made it out of some remnant pieces of leather with some funky shapes and textures, and joined them together on the irregular seam line that came out of it.
I enjoyed experimenting with this technique, and there’s some really cool stuff that can be made with it, but honestly I can’t really pursue it. Exploring it further would require sculpting a bunch of solid formworks to shape the masks onto, and I don’t have space in my workshop/bedroom for that. But there may be occasional projects where I use the technique.
This one-of-a-kind horror is still available on my Etsy!
Http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.html Double-stranded, one strand of plain brown, one strand of variegated cotton.