Leather blog 2.2

Good afternoon and welcome to another blog. This week in the adventures of Garrett's leather-work I will be going over some pretty basic stuff I have been learning and some of the tools I have started to work with. Since my last blog I have started on a set of hobbles. for those of you unfamiliar with that, a set of hobbles is a strap of leather that is wrapped around the legs of a horse so you can turn them loose and they will not travel to far. I have spent most of this week cutting the leather and preparing the the leather to be put together. I am using some very high quality leather that is thick and tough. This makes it tough and time consuming to cut. I am using a special tool called a round knife to do this that is more effective than a regular knife but takes more sharpening.. I have all the pieces cut and have started  scathing the ends so they can be folded over and stitched around a ring. I am happy with my progress and am excited to continue my projects.

blog 2.1

The beginning of my leather adventure has actually gone fairly well actually, compared to the beginning of my guitar catastrophe. I have been using some tools and supplies from the Ag shop with help and guidance from Mr.Rehbein. I started out with just a scrap piece of  leather to get my wits about me with the tools and hammer and such. I then moved on an began to work on my drink coaster. This is very simple and is basically just more tooling practice but more pressure to not mess up. One thing about leather work is you get one shot at making a good stamp. There is no leather eraser. The stamp you make is the stamp you get. I finished the coaster which was very simple. I did I pattern called a basket pattern. This is very common on saddles and thing that are large and need covered. This pattern can cover large amounts of surface. I am now starting on a pair of hobbles

Blog 2.0

Hello fellow bloggers. Sorry to keep you all waiting on knowing what I am doing. I know you all have been DYING to know what I have chosen for my genius hour project. Well.. Drum roll please..... I have chosen to do leather-work. Yes I know, not terribly exciting to the average bear but I'm sure that all of you have seen some fairly cool pieces of leather and if you have spent much time around tack and other leather tools you will find out that their is some cool and useful things made out of leather. I chose this because I am not the most artistically talented person out there and leather definitely is an art form, but it is an art form that you can get better at with practice. I plan on making a few smaller projects while getting better at tooling and designs. I plan on making a coaster and a pair of hobbles to start out.