Sewing

So, today I did a lot of sewing. I got a special order that needs to go out tomorrow, and while I was sewing it, I went ahead and made four of the same things. It's faster for me that way...to be able to cut out four of each piece, sew all of the same pieces together at the same time, etc. It helped that I was making everything the same color today, so I never even had to change my thread out! I'd like to sort all of my fabric into stacks for the different products, an then spend a whole week sewing notebook holders, another week just sewing one style of my purses, etc. That would do wonders for my stash!

I'll be taking some of my products (purses mostly) to an arts and crafts store this week to be sold on consignment. Hopefully that'll do pretty well and get a little cash flow going here! Even if purses don't move fast, they'll go faster than sitting in my living room! Mom says I should send samples to some of the stores she's selling soap to, so I'll probably do that soon.

After I finished the special order today, I decided to use up all of my gingham making shopping bags. I bought several yards of gingham a long time ago, in a few different colors. I also have a bolt of muslin just laying around...it was orginally going to be petticoats, but not today. So, I combined the gingham and muslin, and I'm making "green" shopping bags. After I get going and get an assembly line of sorts set up, I'll be able to turn these bags out pretty quickly, and be able to sell them for a little cheaper. I whipped one up just to see if I thought it was a good idea, and it didn't take any time at all...and I was designing it at the same time. So, I figured they'd go really fast if I had a set idea of what I was doing to start with! I'm planning on spending tomorrow making several of them so I can take them to the store maybe Wednesday.

I've also been braiding a lot of leather. I'm in no hurry, so I'm not working myself to death doing that. It doesn't take any time at all to get blisters braiding this stuff, so I'm taking it slow...a few leashes now and a few more in a hour, that sort of thing. I already have some blisters, but they're not bad and I'm trying to keep them that way! I'm also trying to decide what order to make the leashes in...I'm switching things up from how I used to make them, spending a little more time on each one making sure it's prefect. They were nice before, but this time...this time they'll be perfect! I'm enjoying spending more time on little extra things on each leash...things that don't have to be done, and things that can't be done when you're pressed for time, but they sure make a difference. Anyway, I have a ton of braiding to get done, and while I'm not really in a big hurry, I do have that annoying insurance bill problem, so I'm not sitting around doing nothing here. If these things sell, I'll be fine...I certainly have enough of them...somewhere around 150 of them, I think.

Time to get the dogs fed and get to bed. The weather here has been great today...we've had the windows open all day! Actually, it rained all day, but that's what was great! I don't remember the last time it rained here, and it's been raining steady all day. It's been in the 60s all day, too! A vast difference from Saturday, when the thermometer read 105*!

See ya!

My Sappy Ceiling

Dad and Dave finished laying the floor in parts of the second floor of the barn, which equals the ceiling to my leather shop.

I think I need to paint or something. It's nce and...rustic! :)

The only problem I can see is the kind of wood they used. Pine...I have a pine ceiling. You know what that means?

Yep...I have sap dripping onto my work tables. Oh, well...I just have to be careful not to get it on anything...do you kow how hard that stuff is to get off???!! Very. Thankfully, it's not dripping anywhere where I have leather on the tables, at least, that I've seen!

In other leatherwork news, I've done a lot of work in the shop this week. I started braiding a couple days ago, and have already braided quite a few leashes....enough to make a few blisters. :( I don't particularly care for blisters. Dad told me he had the solution...wrap my blisters up with electrical tape. I will most certainly have to get a picture of that sometime...

My Stitches...

No, I didn't get stitches. ;-)

I've been fussing with my leather sewing machine for a while now. A few different people even told me that the machine I have, an Adler 767, wouldn't sew what I wanted to sew. I contacted Adler, and emailed back and forth with the tech guy, and he told me the same thing...that it wasn't the model that would sew heavy leather. Well, this didn't make me happy in the least...here I was stuck with an expensive machine I couldn't do anything with!

So, for the past few days I've really been working with my machine. I'd sew a little, turn a random knob, sew a little more, and cuss. Ok, so I didn't do that last part. Maybe I felt like it...

This is what I was getting...

As you can see, the top thread is just laying on top (the right side of the leather, the top one in the picture,) instead of being pulled down into the middle of the leather like it should be. The bobbin thread was pulled all the way to the top. The bottom actually looked ok! From that I gathered that my bobbin wasn't pulling enough, but I didn't know what changed that.

On top of that problem, it kept skipping stitches. Even when the bobbin pulled the stitches down like it was supposed to (and that was rare) it would skip stitches. You can see that on this keychain I made... (don't pay any attention to the fact that the stitching doesn't start and stop in the same place an that the V isn't perfect...we're working on that!)

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I studied the little paperwork I had that came with the machine. It doesn't help that it's originally written in German...you have to make sense of stuff like "turn knob 2 anti-clockwise."

Anti-clockwise???

After studying, I found that I had to take some stuff apart on my machine, find itty bitty "screw 11" and tighten it. Last night, I did just that, only it took me forever to tighten it, because it was so tiny we didn't have any screwdriver small enough, so I was using the tip of a knife! And that didn't work too well either... Anyway, I adjusted it. And sewed a little. And adjusted it. And sewed a little, so on and so forth.

And then it happened. I ended up with this.



I didn't really have a plan for what this would be...I was just cutting leather and sewing it together...

But it sews a pretty nice line now...

I do have to make other adjustments...like in the above picture, the sewing foot pressure (or whatver that's called) is obviously too strong, so it's marking the leather. I do know which knob that is though, and it's a knob instead of a minute screw!

So then I finished the collar I started the other day. It's a mess, because half of it looks really bad, and then some of it's ok. Oh, well...I'm not selling it or anything...it was just practice, after all.

See...the top was done the other day and the bottom last night...

Looks fairly decent for a practice piece, I guess. Regal has so much hair, it's not like you can actually see his collar anyway! I still need a couple more tools if I want to make stuff like this. I'd have to at least have an oval punch for the buckle and either a round or english point punch for the end. As it is now, I just cut it, and I'm spoiled by the way the punch looks now!

I don't know if you can tell in these pictures, but this is what the english point punch does for the ends. I'm not sure if I'd want this or a round one for a collar. This collar is 1.5 inches, so maybe round would look better on the bigger stuff, while english points would be nicer for smaller...I dunno...

As it stands now, I should be able to get smaller needles and thread and sew any heavier material that my home fabric machine won't do, with my Adler. I think that by tightening everything so much as I have done, the machine is working it's hardest to sew what I need to sew...since it's not even supposed to sew this weight leather, this is the far end of it's capabilities. I think it will do much better sewing lighter stuff, whether that's denim or leather or whatever. I'm thinking leather bags or something...my wheels are spinning wildy!

That'll be it for now! Time to get busy!



Leather!

Yesterday and today I got a lot of leatherwork done. I'm cutting four sides of leather into straps of different length. I've finished with three of them, and will hopefully be able to get the last one done this afternoon or evening. This morning, before I started working on the straps, I played around with something I had started last night. I went down after supper and cut straps, and then played around with my sewing machine a little. I'm not too far from getting it to work right, I don't think.

First off, I grabbed my toolbox from the shelf beneath my table.

This is what I've played around with. I don't have the right tools to make this kind of thing, right now, but I had this buckle laying around and some scrap leather, so I just wanted to see what I could come up with. I cut it out and sewed a little last night (until my bobbin ran out) and I stamped it this morning. This isn't stamping leather; I just wanted to see what it would look like.

The stitching's ugly...that's what I'm trying to work on fixing. It's a pain.

I edged and rubbed the edges with a waxed rag...it makes it incredibly smooth and a lot of the time you can't tell that it's two pieces of leather, unless you look carefully.

Anyway, nothing too impressive...I'm finding ways to use my scrap leather, and just wondered how this would look. I'd have to have a couple more punches to make this look decent, besides a good seam from the machine!

So this morning I had to wind another bobbin. Ideally, you'd have two spools of thread on the machine, one for your sewing and one that always automatically winds a bobbin. Well, I only have one spool, so I had to un-thread the machine and wind the bobbin, and then thread everything back. I just thought HTML was confusing.

I've been fiddling around with it (well, not fiddling in the literal sense of the word...) trying to get the tension right. Right now the seam is ugly...I think the bobbin thread doesn't pull tight enough, so you can see all the knots on the top of the seam. Not pretty. I studied paperwork over lunch and I think I found what I need to adjust, but we'll see. It's a lot of trial and error, as usual! I'll go back to work down there in a little while. I stayed here at the house after lunch and Rylie and I made some cookies. Recipe to follow sometime...

My shop is getting an Egyptian feel...everywhere you look there are FROGS! This is on my sewing machine!

Back to the cutting...this is what I've done in the past few days. This is all cut from two of the sides, and is what I did yesterday...cut all of these to length.

Time for me to grab a cup of coffee and a cookie...and work on the recipe post. :)

My Shop

By special request - pictures of my shop! Today I cleaned my shop up...I had sanded my cabinet (the one I'm still refinishing...sigh.) in there and made a huge mess. In addition to that, the construction Dad and Dave have done in the barn contributed to the mess. My shop is now enclosed, with three doorways, so I'll be all set in case of a fire. :) Dad said that they would complete my ceiling in the near future...right now there are just some plastic panels to keep the leaky roof from leaking on my leather! I asked Dad yesterday if he'd finished my air in there yet (haha...I knew there'd be no air) and he said I'd gotten all the air I was gonna get! It's supposed to cool off, though, so that'll be nice.

I bought a lot of leather a while back, enough to make quite a few leashes, and I cut some of it up then but then got distracted by other projects. So, it's been sitting in my shop, lonely and neglected, waiting patiently for me to return. I have a wonderful table setup in my shop now, with plenty of room, and different "stations" for the different leather jobs I'll  be doing eventually.

These pictures aren't very good at all...all I had with me this morning was my iPod, and it's not the greatest lighting. We're working on the lighting, too...Dad said he's going to put twice as many lights in my shop and he'll put a switch in there that is only for my section. Right now the switch is for the whole side of the barn, not just my shop. More lighting will be nice!

For starters, my shop hasn't been entirely neglected while I've been away. This little frog took up residence on my chair and won't leave. Dave scared him off, and a few minutes later, he was sitting there again. I do prefer him to the spiders and ticks that are also there. :(

This is looking into my shop from the door I always use. Actually, there isn't a door...it's a doorway.

Oh...the flowers...this morning I decided to pretty up my shop, so I fetched a quart jar from upstairs storage and picked some little black-eyed susans.

This picture is looking from another dooway, directly across from the aforementioned doorway. The inside of these tables here is where I work mostly...where I do all the stamping and punching. I don't know if you can see it or not, but my cutting/punching board is recessed into the table.

This is my braiding station. When I get more leather for braiding (soon, I hope) I will build shelves in between the studs for my spools of leather. It's hard to explain, but it makes good storage! The chair on the left is one that I bought with the intent of weaving a leather seat...but now I'm not so sure I want to strip the paint off. Ugh.

Looking back at my tables from the braiding area. The main doorway is there in the center...you can also see my unfinished cabinet there too, a little to the right.

My sewing area...

Looking back at the tables from my sewing area...

Cutting! I'm so happy with the draw gauge I decided to keep! Having four here at time was great for me...I was able to work with them to see which felt best in my hand. I liked the looks of this particular one best, but it wasn't until after I'd worked with it for a little while that I actually liked the way it felt. It's a nice coppery color (not sure if it's copper or what,) with a rosewood handle. A C.S. Osborne draw gauge, over 100 years old.

I asked a local blacksmith for racks to hang cut leather on. I'm trading chocolate chip cookies for my racks. :D Having a place to hang the leather like this helps me keep different weights separate...sometimes it's hard to tell after it's been cut (and you cut away the stamp where it tells you!!!) Let's just say I'm still learning how to feel the weights!

That'll have to do for now. I will get better pictures with my camera one day, but maybe this at least gives y'all an idea of what my shop looks like! Hopefully, it will continue to improve as I work in it and see things that can be better.

I had such a good time working in the shop this morning. I really like the fact that I don't have deadlines and can work at my own pace. I do well with deadlines, and always make them on time or before, but it's nice not having to worry about it! I'm very thankful for the opportunity I've had to work for other people as well. While I've had some not-so-good experiences and extremely frustrating times (no reason to go into that here) I've learned so much! It also gave me the confidence that I was making good products, products that people who knew what they were looking thought were good..since I'm mostly self-taught, and I learn by trial and error most of the time, it worries me that I don't know as much as I probably should. For instance, I know that Steve Snell at Gun Dog Supply prefered my braided kangaroo lanyards over the ones that he carried made by David Morgan. He compared them side by side and saw a difference that he liked. Wow...that did wonders for my confidence, and I'm so glad I know that! I know that I am nowhere near, and probably never will be, half the braider David Morgan is, but for that particular product...well, I know I make a good one. That's great inspiration!

See ya!