First sporran project

[gwynng]

Hi Gents. Working on my first sporran project. A neighbor was throwing out a large, cat-shredded, leather sofa. I went at it with an exact-o knife to salvage some leather. Thought it would be a good learning material for making a sporran. Cheap and no loss if I muck it up. I am basing my project on the Artificer thread posted in 2010 in which he shows his process in creating a hunting sporran like the one HRH Prince Charles wears so often.

I will spare you the details of patterning and cutting. I created all of my patterns on paper then transferred to leather and cut them out. This leather is fairly thin and supple, so was able to use heavy scissors and may be able to use a sewing machine for a couple of longer seams along the gusset. The one pattern that was mysterious was the second layer of leather that makes the folded "petals" on the front. I tried a few different arcs until I found one that was satisfactory and would fit on the leather scraps. I folded the petals, held them with paper clips until they seemed distributed about right. Next I the wet the leather, made some adjustments before stapling the petals into position. The tacked the whole thing down onto cardboard to let it dry. The result was a top leather piece that held its shape with the petal folds.



Next pic shows the other pieces in place. The odd sort of sunburst shaped piece is to try and level out the leather under the round piece.



So now I get to a juncture where I could use the advice of the crowd. Overall I am very happy with the result, but there are a couple of small dings in the leather on the left hand side. I was thinking this could be hidden a bit by adding a modified tassel to the front. I need to decide before I finish the stitch around the round piece (is that called a targe?). So, thoughts? Tassel or not.

[TheOfficialBren]

Wow! Thank you for posting this! You are off to a grand start!

:-D

Btw, where is Artificer's original post to be found?

[bodhran4me]

No advice, just kudos on what is shaping up to be a great looking sporran!

[sydnie7]

I'd say no tassels, those "dings" will be invisible to the average viewer. It's always hard to back off from your own creations and realize that what you see as flaws will be either invisible or ignored by people who are a few feet away vs. the inches away of the creator!

That's a great repurposing of the old sofa, BTW. I have a nice black leather jacket with unfortunate L-shaped tear in the front, have been hanging onto it for much the same reason. . . can't blame the cats, just my own clumsiness!

[Downunder Kilt]

Wow! Thank you for posting this! You are off to a grand start!

:-D

Btw, where is Artificer's original post to be found?

Here you go OfficialBren, it was his No 5 sporran
http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...y-start-59773/

[TheOfficialBren]

Thank you, Downunderkilt.

[Kilt-alope]

I like it.

[Tobus]

I'd say no tassels, those "dings" will be invisible to the average viewer. It's always hard to back off from your own creations and realize that what you see as flaws will be either invisible or ignored by people who are a few feet away vs. the inches away of the creator!

Huge *** here.

When you work with leather, you just have to learn to love the inherent flaws in the material, especially in cases like this where it has seen prior use. Call it "character" and don't worry about trying to make it look perfect or hide anything.

[gwynng]

Well that was kind of what I figured. I was tending toward no tassels, but wanted a second opinion before moving on. I love doing this stuff because it is always a challenge of ingenuity. I am working with VERY few leather tools, so it is largely about how to make what I have in mind, but without a significant tool expenditure.

My latest discovery: did you know you can do a lock stitch with a plain old sewing machine needle?

More to come as I progress...

[GM445]

turning out very nice