This was my first time working with the Blue Buttero Leather and it’s quite a beautiful material to work with. Compared to the cheaper “craft” leather that I’ve been using previously the Buttero skives easier, cuts easier and burnishes to a very nice edge. I also found that it held it’s shape a lot more when punching holes which sped the stitching process up considerably.

Overall, the piece took me about 3.5h from start to finish to create which isn’t too bad. Ideally, I’d be able to do it in 2h which is probably something for me to aim towards. I’m still waiting for some wing dividers to arrive so I was using the stitching groover again which I’m not the biggest fan of.

Overall, I am happy enough with the piece that I would be comfortable giving it as a gift to some body. It’s not quite at the “professional” level yet, mainly because my ability to cut curves is low. They often come out a little bit ragged, this is the main thing that’s stopping this particular piece from being “sellable”.

I should also look into what kind of branding and makers marks that I’d like to include on these pieces.

Lessons

• Continuously strop the skiving knife to ensure it has a smooth mirrored finish. This will make skiving go much faster.
• Slightly steeper angle on the knife in order to get a more reasonable incline.
• The biggest time improvements will likely come from improving my stitching technique. Some things to consider:
  • Use less thread, I had a lot left over and it takes a long time to pull so much thread through. Alternatively, I could have used less at the expense of more backstitching which I’m not visually a massive fan of.
  • Look into a stitching pony
  • Look into a new set of stitching chisels including a 6/10 prong chisel. The largest I have is 4 currently which leads to a lot of punching
• Using a fresh x-acto #2 blade made the initial cutting process a lot easier. I think it got dull quickly though. I have two options here:
  • Buy a large stock of blades, appears to be difficult in Australia and quite expensive
  • Find an alternative blade for the fine detail work
• Learn how to take product photos
• I used 0.6mm Ritza Tiger Thread in Cream, might have been nicer to use a 0.8mm
• My stitching was a lot straighter on this piece which is nice, slowly improving

Materials

• Leather: Blue Buttero Leather, 1.2-1.4mm thick
• Thread: 0.6mm Ritza Tiger Thread in Cream
• Glue: Kyoshin Elle - Leather Glue 100 Water Based (a white glue)
• Edging: Seiwa Tokonole

Pattern

• Leather card wallet from Corter Leather.

Photos