pretty good first attempt

[DWFII]

I love it for the simplicity. And the use of the pineapple knots on the "strapparatus" is truly inspired. Is the cantle made up of two pieces of leather bonded over the bison, with the bison sewn to the rear piece? If not how do you stitch it and not have it show thru? I have been working a soft bag cantle design in my own head for a while, but it would be more formal and use a pewter cantle.

Just a fine, fine piece of work. If I make one suggestion it would be to bond a thin lining leather to the inside when the suede side of the bag isn't finished for appearance.

Turpin,

Thank you for your kind words.

Look closely at the second photo...I think you can see how the bag is attached. The cantle is two separate pieces (front and back) of insole shoulder. This is a veg tanned leather produced expressly for making insoles. Because it is a shoulder (a double shoulder) it is soft enough to tool if so desired but hard enough to hold its shape in a way that a harness leather might not. It is about a quarter inch thick (10-11 iron).

The fleshside edge of each cantle piece is given a rabbet (or "channel"). The rabbet need only be about a quarter inch wide and just deep enough to accommodate the thickness of the edge of the bag. The bag leather may be glued--with a hide glue or dextrine--into the channel but it is only to prevent slippage and/or distortion...it does not hold the bag .

Then the bag is sewn into the cantle with a butt stitch or what we call "round closing." A very fine curved sewing awl pieces the fleshside of the cantle at a pre-determined distance from the edge of the channel with the intent of emerging down in the channel such that it may then pierce the edge of the bag leather. The awl then emerges on the fleshside of the bag a similar pre-determined distance from the edge of the bag leather.

Once the hole is made, a very fine length of waxed linen (three cord?) or dacron is twisted and plaited onto a boar's bristle...one on each end...and then these are fed into the hole made by the awl.

Continue in this manner, tightening each stitch firmly but judiciously, until the end is reached.

Done correctly this is a very good, solid, seam that will hold forever and, it is of course, a very old technique.

I contemplated adding a lining but thought that the only lining that made sense was a remnant of tartan...which I didn't have at the moment.

PS...being a shoemaker, I have a very low regard for "bonding" techniques. My preference is always to rely on thread in lieu of glue or cement. Not that I don't use glues and cements...I just don't rely on them. I was experimenting with creating a hard leather lip over the top edge of the cantle. I came up with a technique to sew two mitered pieces together with no stitching showing but to do this I had to create a thin channel just under the surface of the grainside and bury my stitches under it. That meant relying on some sort of adhesive to close the channel back down. I just didn't feel that such a solution would last for long, so I abandoned the idea.