leather work

I had been wanting to learn how to work with leather for a little while,

and finally got a chance to!

(well, this class will be done after two more classes)

so far, we made a belt, like below, and a handbag -work-in-progress. 

 learned cleaning, treating, dyeing and handstitching the leather, as well as the machine sewing of the leather.

my singer has no trouble sewing oil cloth, so I was pretty confident it will take leather with no hustle.

w.r.o.n.g.

she really didn't like sewing the leather.

I had a really thin soft pig swede, which may have something to do with it,

also none of the roller foot the teacher had didn't fit on my machine.

ugh.

I am going to find a roller foot that's made for her, so I can work more with leather in the future! 

meanwhile,

I finally got around to what I had been meaning to do for a quite sometime!

finally soled these slippers I knitted/felted last october.

I know I am a procrastinator, but I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing since I had no experience working with leather before.

 now, I know how-to, it was a piece-o-cake!

pleased with how it turned out, and it's great having a extra cushion/durability to these! 

this season's first knitting project

do you remember this post where I wrote about Happy Knit's anniversary party?

I started working on the slippers on that weekend, and it didn't take me too long to finish knitting all the parts.

 upon assembly, I came across the designer's blog for Bickford seam video tutorials.

then I did some research on 'felting' because I've never done it before, but it didn't look that hard.  however, our washing machine is an old front-loader, and it seemed having a hard time felting.  in addition to it is a front-loader having some trouble felting, compare with the top-loader, maybe the hottest set water wasn't hot enough?  hm :I                           well, that's done anyway and took them a few days to dry(I'm sure it would have been quicker outside!)

 made couple fabric covered buttons, and sewed all the parts together.                 taddaaaa :) 

actually they are technically NOT DONE yet,,,

the pattern called to put something, like puffy paint, on the bottom sole to give them more friction.

yet my housemate gave me a better piece of advised to sew leather on the sole to make them more durable and warmer.

I think it's a great idea and I'd love to try that.

that will be my first project with leather as well.

a simple, no stress project for a first timer!

I will tell you all about it once I get them done :)

stay tuned!