After last nights poking around I was ready to try a real project. Inspired by the post A riveting remnant by @jae I decided to give it a go.
I used six ounce tooling leather and it was a bear to get together until I finally tracked down my jewelry pliers. I just finished it up.
I need to practice with the dye but it was a fun project.
Nice job. Looks great!
Beautiful! Can you expand a little on how you dyed the leather?
I had not a clue what I was doing. I picked up a set of Eco Flo leather dye. I cut up an old tube sock and used one piece to wipe down the leather with some water to clean it up a bit since I used blue painter’s tape to mask it. Then let it dry.
I then used other pieces of the sock to wipe on the colors Sunshine Yellow, Scarlet Red, and Timber Brown. I soaked the cloth in water and rung it out. Then I put a little dye on it and rubbed it into the leather. I started with yellow in the center and worked out to red and brown using different pieces of sock for each color.
I went back and added more in layers to build up the colors. Even so the brown dried a lot lighter than I expected. The interesting part is that the sock material gave definite brush strokes. It took some work to blend the colors some but I took my time. I didn’t want it to be too smooth but it started out looking like wood grain.
After letting that dry I used two coats of Fiebing’s leather conditioner. On the first coat it was possible to make the dye bleed a little so I took advantage that to work the color blends some more. I let each coat dry and gave it a quick buff. I think I should have used a finisher before the conditioner but that’s all I had.
Not sure if the sale ends tonight but Tandy has half shoulders on sale for $29.99. I just ordered more and will pick them up tomorrow so I can ask about finishers when I’m there.
Nicely done! I like how the dye turned out.
Beautiful job! Love the design and the dye job! 
Thanks but the design is from the catalog. Next step is creating my own design using what I learned. I was happy enough that I bought three more pieces of leather from Tandy while they were still on sale. 
I think that dye job is great!
Thanks. It really evened out overnight. The brown became more subtle and overall it has a nice pink hue to it. Getting good response at the office today.
That’s beautiful, I love the look you got with your dye!
Agreed on the pliers, while it can be done without, they make the first and last bit of each side a lot easier.
Thanks to your inspiration. I ordered leather before I had the forge setup based solely on you post. The color has softened a lot overnight and I love the results - particularly since I’ve never dyed leather before.
I have two nights to put together more of these to show at First Friday this week. It will be fun to see the reactions. Then I’ll be starting work on an original design.
(Also better lighting here. I didn’t bother to take a good photo last night. 
)
