Some thoughts on the concept of a waiting list

I am terrible at managing my waiting list, and here are some of the reasons why:

1 - My unrelated, full-time job doesn't leave me much time to dedicate towards working on items in the queue. I think of my leather work as a second job, but I really only have the time to spare that one would use for a hobby.

2 - When I do have spare time, it doesn't always go towards working on the projects that are waiting. Sometimes I need to make new designs, or refine existing patterns, or just try new things to keep this line of work from feeling stale. Sometimes I create wallets for my Etsy store. Sometimes I work on a legitimate hobby (lock picking, learning to make and crack whips). And then there are the requests for small projects that I know won't take very long, so I squeeze them in right then.

3 - I believe it was Bruce Sterling that said "the more you can do, the more you will do." There's a lot I can do, so there are things other than leather working that occupy my time. If my car breaks, I fix it. If my bike needs maintenance/modification, I do it. If there's something I need for the house, I'll probably try to build it.

Recently, I took a long hard look at how I've been spending my time this year, and it was kind of a shock to see just how little time I've spent working on items from the waiting list. Then I spent way too much time trying to think of new and exciting ways to approach the queue, as the traditional, take-them-in-the-order-in-which-they-came approach didn't seem to be working for me. I gave some serious thought to declaring "waiting list bankruptcy," and just erasing my waiting list. This was to be paired with a very simple approach to requests - I'm either available to work on one project, or I'm not. A waiting list would not be maintained, and I'd either work on a request right then or interested parties would have to check back later. There would be a notice somewhere, probably on this site, when I was available, and it would be removed when I took on a project. The other option was to just stop doing custom work altogether, but this option seems less likely as I really do like new challenges. 

After lots of thought in this vein, I decided that declaring waiting list bankruptcy was the cowardly approach to avoiding a lot of awkward email and/or phone conversations. "Hey, um, I know it's been years since we talked about this and you probably forgot who I am, but do you still want that guitar strap?" So, I'm going to keep working through the waiting list at my customary glacial pace, but I am going to make a change or two. Without a regular supply of free time, giving someone an estimate as to how long it will be till I can get to their order is both optimistic and foolish. From now on, I'm going to be much more honest and just tell interested parties "I don't know how long it will take, but it's going to take a long time."

One other thing - when I do contact people to tell them that it's their turn in the queue, there is a good chance that I'll never get a response from them. Maybe their contact info changed, maybe they don't remember who I am, or maybe they (justifiably!) got sick of waiting for me to get in touch. So maybe this waiting list isn't nearly as daunting as I think.

As always, feel free to get in touch if you think your project has been forgotten.

Mostly wallets and some transportation issues

Lots of work happening lately...that is, when I'm not having to do repairs on my truck or making major modifications to my daily commuter bike. Up first is yet another trucker wallet, this time with a prickly pear/eyeball design:

On a whim, I decided to make myself a newer, fancier wallet. The exterior is ostrich leg and uses cowhide for the edge braiding. The interior is an eye-watering shade of green, and a side snap keeps all my essentials secure (I usually throw my wallet in a bag):

Here is a batch of nubuck front pocket wallets for my Etsy store:

Here's a snap bifold in that same ambiguous not quite gray/not quite blue nubuck leather:

Then I made a batch of really simple front pocket wallets/card cases. Also on Etsy:

Then, I decided to spring for some Horween shell cordovan and made a couple of, you guessed it, wallets. Up first is a snap bifold:

And there was enough left over to make a front pocket wallet/card case:

Last but certainly not least is a pipe and tobacco pouch for a rather long, Gandalf-style pipe. This was yet another opportunity to tool a design with that Great Old One, Cthulhu. It's got four inner pockets for tools and/or cards, and one large zippered and undyed pocket for tobacco:

Now that the dust has settled

There hasn't been a lot of work happening lately. I ended up moving to a new residence, which also meant setting up a new workspace, and all of that took up a lot of free time. However, now that I've got my workbench set up just the way I like it I can get back to work. First up is something I actually made at the old place, while I was in the middle of packing. This is a trucker wallet in vegetable-tanned leather that I dyed green and black and texturized. One big open space in the middle, with pockets on either side for cards and cash. One of my chainmaille wallet chains completes the package, and it uses brass and bronze rings in a Full Persian 6-1 variant:

Right after I got settled in my new place it was time to start working on my girlfriend's birthday present. I'd picked up a hide of lavender leather a while back, thinking that it would be perfect to use for something for her, and she's been hinting that she'd like another purse lately. This time she wanted something slouchy, like a floppy hobo bag, so that's what she got:

A lot of edge paring went into this purse, though I left the strap edges and decorative elements plain and raw. It's not lined, as I wanted to keep the weight down and also so it would stay floppy. The solid brass rings came from some old saddle tack.

Finally, there's been more work completed on my neverending quest to perfect my commuter bike setup. When I moved to another part of town, it effectively doubled my bike commute to work. Now that I'm riding further and through hillier terrain, it made me realize that my most recent bike bag was, well, just too damn huge. It's great and it's holding up fine, but it's way too big for my day to day riding, and it ends up putting a lot of weight pretty far forward. Plus I can't resist the urge to tinker and fine-tune designs. So here it is, Bike Bag version 2.0:

It's about half as deep as the previous version, and when it's mounted on the rack there is still room to carry other things. The interior is a floating liner of vinyl coated polyester, so the main compartment is waterproof. This time, though, I didn't line the pockets, as it turns out it's not very effective at keeping the outside pockets dry. I figure if I ever get caught in a shower (like this morning) I'll just transfer electronics to the main compartment and keep going. There are open pockets on the sides for a water bottle, which is now a necessity, the back is padded, and there's even some interior organization, with lots of pen slots and some smaller pockets in a divider. And, because it was satisfying to me, I even added some PALS webbing to the front and back, so I can attach more pouches to it if needed. The first ride with it was great, minus getting soaked, so I feel pretty good about this latest version.