What follows are some photos of recent goings-on on or around my workbench. First up is a freshly completed batch of zippered wallets. I've been tweaking this design for what feels like forever, but I've now got one that I'm (mostly) happy with. Which means it was time to construct some out of nice leather and put them up for sale. They're made out of a dark blue-violet Horween leather with a pebbled texture and sturdy YKK antique brass zippers:
The other project that's occupied so much of my time was a large batch of key pouches for the Hotel St. Cecilia. And now that it's complete, delivered, and paid for, I realized that I never took any photos of the finished project. All I've got to show for it are some in-progress phone pics:
Basically, they are pouches that are open on both ends, and there's a brass snake chain that runs through them. At one end is a split ring with the room key and a brass dog tag, and the idea is that you can pull the key ring into the pouch and use the other end of the chain as a wrist loop. This was my first time soldering brass, so I suspect I'll be seeing some of them for repairs.
It's birthday month, and Laurel's birthday happened recently. Per her not-so-subtle request, I made her another Tentacle Restraint Unit - carved hair pin and tooled leather strap which she can use to put up her dreads. Oh, and that's supposed to be a bee on the end of the hair pin (probably going to revisit that particular carving). I tried to make it more stylized and rounded, so as not to inflict any damage on other people, like myself, but it still feels a little vague:
Recently I've been toying with some ideas for weirdo clutches. Prototype the 1st:
I've also been doing some repair work. A friend had a very nice belt with some busted stitching, so that was an easy fix:
He also had a shell cordovan watch strap with a problem - a keeper that was separating from the inner layer of leather. I happened to have some shell cordovan laying around in the proper color, so I replaced that too:
And one final repair - a friend from work fell off a shed and busted his knife sheath. Once again I didn't take a picture of the repair, but it was a simple enough matter to remove the stitching, replace a rivet, and re-stitch:
Oh, and there were a couple of t-shirt designs that I drew too, but once again, no photos.
