Monday, July 11, 2011

Experiments in traditional and newer materials

Up first is an experiment in synthetic materials. This is the second whip I've made and this time I set out to create a snake whip in paracord. It's a lot smaller than the first whip and has four feet of thong (the braided section), no real handle and with the fall and cracker (the black single strand and the white twisted cord at the end) the total length is right at six feet. There are four layers, three plaited, at the handle and the number of layers reduces as everything tapers towards the tip. It took some getting used to, as it's much stiffer than my stockwhip but doesn't have a solid handle, but once I figured out how to handle it the crack is pretty nasty.

Up next is an idea that got stuck in my head and simply had to be created. Instead of tooling and carving an image, I wanted to really play with the properties of leather and create something more 3D, something that stuck out from the surface of the item. This tentacle wallet is mostly constructed with raw vegetable tanned leather. Most of it is 2-3 ounce , but I cut out holes for the suckers and inserted 4-5 ounce leather in the shape of suckers, covered it in dyed doe kidskin and stitched them into place.

Just a minimal amount of tooling to give the shape of the tentacle, which continues off to the side to be the strap that keeps the wallet shut.

Six card pockets, two currency pockets and one coin pouch make this a fairly thick wallet. This will probably fit better in a purse or a bag than in a back pocket.

The dye used to color the doe kidskin ended up nearly matching the tarnished brass of the anorak snap used as a closure - lucky coincidence!

As always, hand stitched.

2 comments:

Gadora Wilders said...

Your wallet is so snappy Joey! The deerskin tentacles are visually dreamy, and I assume uber soft - kinda makes me want to fondle them. The color choice is spot on! It's beautiful!!

kinky_boot_beast said...

WANT.