Completed Leatherworking III

[Nya Winters]

Timestamp: 55th of Fall, 516 AV

When morning came, Nya was refreshed and ready to work on more stitches. Progressing in Leatherworking was cheering her up and making her feel useful to the colony. She broke her fast with fresh fruit and some dried crocodile she’d prepared earlier in the week and ran down to the ocean to take a quick swim and get ready to settle in for the day. Nya tended to fixate on things when she was learning. Her mother said she had a narrow world that would narrow even further until she’d mastered what it was she’d set out to learn. Nya had no idea why she wanted to learn Leatherworking. It was a useful trait, something needed in the settlement, and something that could be embellished and made to look beautiful if anyone simply took the time with it.

So it was that the kelvic wasn’t remotely getting tired of her learning. She craved it. And so when she sat down at her workbench to continue from the day before, it was with eagerness she opened her book and began to continue reading about new stitches she had to know to be successful.

The next stitch the book recommended Nya learn was a saddle stitch. The stitch was a bit more complicated than most and required several additional tools that Nya was only just starting to learn. For one, a stitching groover was an absolute must. So too was a pricking iron and an awl. Nya laid out the tools and wondered what she was going to make while learning the stitch. She skipped ahead, reading what she would be doing to get some idea of what saddle stitches were actually for. It seemed the stitch wa a strong secure and traditional stitch pattern for joining to flat pieces of leather together… usually with the rough sides facing in and the smooth sides facing out. It worked well for saddles, as its name implied, but also for any sort of armor or protection. It could make small pouches, big double thick containers of leather, and just any sort of leather project one wanted to make with it.

Nya decided she’d make herself a pair of simple leather bracers. They could wrap around her wrists and arms to protect her from snakebites and other jungle occupational hazards. Making them doubly thick would mean her wrists would get excellent support and no snake would be able to bite through the tough leather. All she had to do was take her tape measure, measure around her wrist and the largest part of her arm she wanted protected, and cut out four pieces of leather – two for each arm – which were in pairs mirrors of each other, and then follow the book instructions and learn the stitch.

Nya carefully measured twice, deciding the bracers would work best if they were about eight inches long. So she then measured her wrist, halfway down at the four inch mark, then at the eight inch mark on her arm. She cut the leather, one piece at a time, then inverted the already cut piece to trace a around and cut a second. Each mirrored set she placed together – rough sides in – and set them aside once they were done. Nya did this twice until she had two thick beginnings of a set of nice bracers laid out before her. Then she turned back to the book.

Next it was time to prep for the stitching. She took her stitch groover, and cut a stitching groove on the abutting side of the leather, carefully running all the way around. It took time to do four of these, holding the tool steady and pushing with pressure that was even enough to simply slice off the thin later that was needed to fit the leather together. Next she took a pickling iron and her mallet. Holding the leather down on her work surface, she began to punch the stitch holes all the way around. Nya was able to use the ten hole prickling iron until she got to the corners where she had to switch to the single iron to keep the holes going gently around the cures where the long iron wouldn’t fit. Once she completed all four holes, Nya set the work aside and went back to the book.

She cut the thread – this time at the recommendation of FIVE times the length of the span to be stitched – and threaded the needles. Two needles were needed again, one at each end. This was similar to the ball stitch… so it was quickly accomplished. Next, Nya gripped the stitching horse with her knees and inserted the bracers, rough sides together, into the device. She could work the length of the horse, then would have to loosen it, adjust the leather, and keep going. Deciding to start halfway down the straight stretch, Nya lined up the leather with the rough sides facing each other and the holes perfectly lined up. Next she ran down the holes with an awl, thrusting the sharp point through each piece of leather to open the holes up and further and make sure they were aligned. The book claimed this was a step that couldn’t be skipped because it made it so much easier to pass the needles through the holes if they were spread out a bit and opened up.

Finally Nya pulled the thread through the first holes where she wanted to start. She pulled the threaded needles evenly , adjusted it so each side had the same amount of slack, and then held the needles with one in her left hand and one in her right hand. Beginning the first stitch, she inserted the left hand needle into the second stitch hole from left to right, going just part way through. Then she inserted the right hand needle into the same second stitch hole from right to left, partway, so that both needles crossed inside the hole. She let go of the needles as the book instructed. Nya wondered why the needles were inserted together, and the book told her the answer as she read forward a moment. Both needles are inserted together so that the second needle didn’t accidently pierce the thread of the first needle, thus weakening or even breaking the stitch. Nya could see the reasoning then, and then readjusted her grip. She picked up the needle coming out of the left hand side of the work with her left hand and grabbed the right needle with her right hand.

Pulling with uniform pressure, Nya slide the thread through the hole and gently tugged them evenly tight. She liked the look of the work, having left behind a nice neat stitch that ran parallel to the edge of the leather. Next she moved to the third hole, inserted both needles, let them go, regrasped them with each correct hand on each side, and pulled the thread through. She continued stitching this pattern, one hole at a time, crossing the needles in the hole and pulling each thread tight. Nya, as she had predicted, had to loosen the stitching horse multiple times and move the leather as she worked her way around the first set of bracers. Once she came to where she started, Nya reversed the stitch direction at least four holes, before knotting off the work and snipping the thread clean.

One advantage she could find to the saddle thread was that because the stitches were double looped and evenly taking the weight of the piece, they were particularly durable. Nya could tell that even if one thread were to be somehow damaged or break, the other stitch would remain in place and hold the item together.

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[Nya Winters]

At this point, Nya had a choice. She could set her bracers aside in favor of learning more stitches, or she could switch to lacing lessons to make sure her project got completed and she didn’t start a trend with a workshop (or at least the makings of a workshop) full of half-finished projects. Just thinking of having things not finished bothered Nya so she opted to switch up her lessons to lacings and go back to finish more lessons on stitching when she had time.

Flipping through the book, Nya skipped the rest of the stitches and moved into the section on lacing. Lacing was referred to as thonging and could be both functional and decorative. The book urged each and every leatherworker to save their scrap pieces and make their lacing from them. Laces always had ends cut to a point so they could easily be threaded through whichever perforations were created to run the laces through. Instead of making lacing from strips, as Nya had assumed, she quickly learned that lacing was taken from thick leather ovals. One would cut a large oval and then begin cutting around it evenly. There were no corners or 90 degree turns taken. Any sort of cornering would weaken the lacings. One wanted to use the leather the way the flesh grew. It was stronger that way. Once the big oval was cut into whatever thickness of lacing the leatherworker needed, the cut lacings were dampened and pulled between the thumb and forefinger to straighten them out. The book urged the new leatheworker to work with a piece no longer than a yard and a half because any longer and the leather would have a tendency to stretch and weaken. Laces could be joined together with angled cuts, skiving, and then gluing the two edges together. Once the joints were dry, they could be shaved and they would become nearly invisible to the casual observer. Nya would have to learn how to make the glue, but the whole processes seemed somehow simple to her.

Prior to lacing any leather together, one needed to skive the edges unless they were already sewn like Nya’s bracers were. One needed to hand punch holes in the leather equal in distance apart with the distance the holes are from the edge. Nya could see why using the saddle stitch was preferred when beginning to lace. The stitch didn’t create a ridge since it was made in a channel and would lay flat to not interfere with the laces once they were threaded through the punches.

It was harder to punch the holes in the saddle stitched leather because suddenly it was two layers of leather thick rather than the one. Nya found she could do so easily once she’d switched from her mallet to her little mini sledge. It took multiple blows on each hole, but in the end, the awl got through and the holes were made. Nya was careful to make each hole evenly spaced. Once she got them all punched, she went back through using her stitching horse to shove an even bigger awl through each perforation to increase the hole size and the ease in which the lacings would go through.

Once each bracer had the holes punched in it, Nya took a bell to actually mark out the broad oval and cut the spiral laces. She made sure she had enough lace length that she had three times the length of the span of the laces but not over the recommended yard and a half or less. When she got them cut, she wet them, stretched them, and then let them dry. When they were done, she waxed and burnished each edge so they looked completely brand new and big city acquired.
Setting them aside, Nya picked the book back up to read how to lace the lacings. She was sure she knew how to do it, but she wanted the craftsman who wrote the books opinion on how each thing should be handled and why.

Flipping to the section on lacing stitches, Nya continued her research. It seemed that most of the lacing that happened indeed happened because of personal taste and artistic license. There actually was no right or wrong way to do things, Nya found out, as she read further. One could mimic stitches with lacing, such as the running stitch. But by and large the most popular stitch for lacing was the overcast stitch.

Overcast stitching was used as a continuous stitch around a project or may be used on just a side. The continuous stitch could be started by slipping the needle and lacing into the center of the two pieces and dropping it through the bottom of the first hole, skiving the ends, and tucking them in with glue. After this has dried, the lacings were then brought up over the edge and dropped through the second hole. This continued either around the item or down the length of where an item needed to be laced together. If it was never going to be unlaced, the project could be finished as it was started. However, if it was indeed going to be laced and unlaced multiple times, the laces were just trimmed and tied in a slip or bow knot at the end of the run of laces.

Nya made a mental note to remember that for a straight seam where she was using an overcast stitch, the first and last stitches would be straight stitches with the ends glued into the project. This definitely wasn’t the type of lacing Nya was going to use on her bracers. It simply wasn’t realistic.

Instead, cross stitching seemed to be a better option. Basically it involved a double overcast stitch which used twice the length of lacing and both ends are used. One piece comes up from the bottom and the other goes down from the top. The ends are worked with overcast stitches or tied off as a leatherworker sees fit.

Nya went ahead and used the overcast stitch in lacing up her braces, passing each end through each opposite hole, crossing them in the middle of the piece, and then tying them at the end after repeating the lacing over and over. It was a nice look that to her way of thinking added yet another layer of protection on the bracer. She’d arranged her bracers, when she cut them, so they would align with the side of her arms, facing outwards. The laces looked nice there, almost decorative, and she was happy with how they turned out.

Once she was finished with them, Nya set the bracers aside and looked at the small section on lacing left. Deciding to go out for another short run down to the beach and a dip in the water, she took a break and planned to return to the study a half bell or so later.

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[Nya Winters]

When Nya returned from her dip in the sea, she was ready to take on more information. Looking at her completed bracers laying on the table, Nya longed to be able to decorate them appropriately, and maybe even dye them. She knew those skills would come later, but for now it was important that she realize she could only do what she knew. More research would mean knowing more and she’d be able to do more. Sighing heavily, Nya pushed the bracers aside and went back to the book.

Lacing had one more stitch type that Nya needed to learn. Buttonhole stitches were the most decorative and required, it seemed, about three times the length of the seam in lacing. The amount needed wasn’t as much as the eight times the seam length that some stitches required, but it was plenty. Nya could see herself making lacing by the yard When Nya returned from her dip in the sea, she was ready to take on more information. Looking at her completed bracers laying on the table, Nya longed to be able to decorate them appropriately, and maybe even dye them. She knew those skills would come later, but for now it was important that she realize she could only do what she knew. More research would mean knowing more and she’d be able to do more. Sighing heavily, Nya pushed the bracers aside and went back to the book.

Lacing had one more stitch type that Nya needed to learn. Buttonhole stitches were the most decorative and required, it seemed, about three times the length of the seam in lacing. The amount needed wasn’t as much as the eight times the seam length that some stitches required, but it was plenty. Nya could see herself making lacing by the yard in the future.

The stitch itself began with a flat stitch regardless of whether the stitch was continuous or just a straight run One inserted the lacing between two layers and brought it out through the bottom of the first hole. Nya reminded herself that she needed to skive each end of the lacing and then tuck it into the project with glue. Her kit had a small jar of glue in it she was using, but so far she was using a lot of it up. Nya would have to look up in the book later and see if it indeed had a glue recipe. If it did not, she’d have to go see Uta or maybe even the healer and see if he had anything she could use. What she really needed was a recipe. Nya made a note of it – her first note in her workshop – and wrote the words ‘find glue recipe’ on it.

Once the glue was dry, , she brought the lacing up around the edge, following the directions in the book, and back down through the same hole. She then brought the lacing up over the edge and down through the second hole without pulling it tight. Then she took the end of the lacing, passed it over the stitch, and brought it out in front under the stitch which she’d just made. Nya had to use her left hand to pull the stitch to the left while pulling the lacing with her right hand to twist it into place and make it tight. She was careful not to pull it too tight and kept the stitches uniform. It was a hard stitch, one she had to concentrate on rather than let her mind drift and think on other things. The stitch needed to be continuous, and if it was broken up the book recommended ending the stitch with the end of the lacing tucked in and glued, just like ti started. When it was used with a continuous seam, it passed over both the straight edge and the slanting edge at the beginning of the project. Then it was tucked left so it was nearly impossible to tell where the actual stitching had started.

Finally, the book recommended that laced edges should be flattened.

Nya had no idea what that meant and had to read the section several times to truly understand it. Finished edges looked professionally done if they were flattened. The book had no illustrations in it so Nya had no idea what it really meant. The best she could do was take one of her bracers, follow the directions in the book, and compare it to the other bracer which she was going to leave as is. As the book instructed, Nya laid the bracer out flat and laid several small thin sheets of leather over it. Then she took her biggest mallet and began banging the project around the edges to flatten the laces. It removed any loops and tended to soften as well as flatten the edges.

When she grew tired of pounding, Nya pulled the leather off and studied the flattened lace. She brought the other bracer over, compared the two, and decided the book was right. The flattened leather lace looked a lot better. So Nya pushed the finished bracer aside, laid the other one out, covered it with the soft leather, and began the pounding all over again. There was something satisfying about flattening the edges. Once she was done she replaced the leather and smiled at flipped the page in her book to see what was next.

Polishing and Coloring Leather. Nya loved it. But then she realized she had to go back. Her bracers could get finished in this section, perhaps even dyed, but she wanted to make sure she wasn’t forgetting any sewing techniques before she moved on to finishing.

Sighing, Nya flipped back in the book, back to the sewing section, and picked up where she left off. Box Stitching…. Box stitching was similar to the saddle stitch but it joined two pieces of leather at a ninety degree angle for a three dimensional shape. With this stitch, Nya would be able to form simple things out of leather, such as a stiffened holder for her tools and charcoals, or even some sort of boxes and bags to leave around her home. It was exciting enough that the prospect of learning a box stitch, that she forgot about actually learning to finish her bracers or dye them. That could come later, without a doubt but for now she was actually going to start a new project.


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[Nya Winters]

The first thing Nya had to decide was what she was going to make. She actually did need all sorts of holders for her tools, especially the taps and things that came in her kit. A small almost cup-like container would work well as long as it had a sewn bottom on it. In skimming the book looking for ideas, Nya ran across a passage where the author had a warning. He seemed to indicate that box stitches didn’t work with thin or soft flexible leather because the leather wouldn’t keep its shape. He recommended leather that was at least 4-5 ounces at least an 1/8th inch thick. The other thing she realized right away was that she was loosing her extra hand… ie the stitching horse. Because the piece wasn’t going to be held flat, but rather stitched on at a 90 degree angle, that meant that she would have to fiddle and fudge with the leather holding it together as she stitched.

So deciding on the tool holder, Nya quickly picked a thicker piece of leather… one a quarter inch thick… and cut out a big circle in it using a small metal compass. Next she carefully decided the circumference by rolling the circle down her ruler after marking it until the mark touched the ruler again. Once she had that number, she took the same thick leather and cut out a piece that wide – 10 inches – and 6 inches tall. Then she carefully skived the edges, used a stitching groover to trim the shortest ends of the leather down, and then brought the short ends together to make the leather into a tube to check the fit on the circular base. Perfect! Then she released the tube, grabbed her pricking iron, and prepunched holes in the short end of the square piece to do a baseball stitch.

Next, before sewing it together, Nya knew she had to prepare the bottom to be stitched onto the base. She used roughly the same technique with first the stitching groover and then the long ten prong prickling iron to get the holes punched. Then, patiently taking her awl, she poked it through each and every hole on the rectangular piece so she would be ready to sew. Nya got out her thread, took a deep breath, and got ready to sew.

Carefully she cut the thread the prescribed length, threaded her needles, and stitched the long rectangular piece of leather into a tube. When she finished that seam off, Nya picked up the book, re-read the section, and began following its directions on the box stitch.

First she had to use the stitching groover again and trimmed a grove into the circular bottom. Next she punched the holes with a single prong pricking iron because the long straight iron would not work on the curved surface. Next she picked up her awl, opened all the holes wider, and got ready to sew the base onto the cylinder. This was where she was unsure. The book recommended on round bases getting sewn to circular things, the thread length be seven times the length of the span to be stitched.

The Talderian Forest Cat measured out the thread, cut it, and threaded her needles. She inserted one end of the thread through the eye of her first needed, then inserted the opposite end of the thread through the eye of the second needle and wondered how she was going to hold the project, both needles, and actually sew.

Nya kept following directions though. The book suggested that she hold the pieces of leather against each other at a ninety degree angle, rough sides facing inward. Nya did so, but had to twist the bottom so that the holes lined up. She tried to hold the pieces together for the first few stitches with one hand, knowing she’d need her free hand to sew. So arranging the pieces in her left hand, she took and made her first stitch with her right hand. She pulled the thread evenly through the first holes on the cylinder and the first hole on the circular bottom. Then she carefully – still holding the piece one handed – pulled the thread through so that there was an even amount poking through each side. Nya growled in frustration, not sure how this was going to work.

Carefully she began to complete the first stitch by taking her right hand and pushing the needle from the fished side to the rough side through the second stitch hole. Once it was in Nya pulled it through. She then pushed the same needle from the rough side to the finished side through the second stitch hole of the second piece of leather. It made one half of the stitch.

Nya began to sweat.

The Kelvic then repeated the step she just did, but in reverse, taking the second needle and stitching it from the second piece of leather to the first. She pushed the second needle from the finished side to the rough side through the second stitch hole of the second piece of leather. She pulled through the excess. She then pushed the same needle from the rough to the finished side through the second stitch hole of the first piece.

The first stitch was done.

Carefully she tightened the first stitch by gently pulling each side separately. Then since the two sides were joined, Nya was able to release the piece from her left hand, let it hang, and handled both needles. She was able to stitch the pattern around repeating the same steps over and over again until she made a complete circle. For practicality sake, Nya had started one hole from the seam that joined the cylinder together which rose up from the bottom. So when she got done, she finished at that same vertical seam. She tied off the thread with a simple standard knot and then doubled it. She pulled the last threads tight and cut the thread as close to the leather as she could. The piece actually looked really neat when she was done. Because of the Pickling lron, and the groover, the stitches looked nice and neat. Nya was proud of it. She tossed the container up and down a moment then sat it at the edge of her workstation. She then filled it with her awls and stamps, thinking it looked a lot like a pen or pencil holder from a fancy desk in Ravok.

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[Nya Winters]

Finally! Nya thought as she went back to the section she had to regrettably leave when she opted to learn the last of the stitches. Now it had been worth it to learn the box and button stitches, but she was more than willing to see what polishing and color leather was all about. Nya flipped pages, and skimmed the introduction. Sometimes the author got very wordy when it wasn’t necessary and this introduction was no exception. Her take home message was simple when she finally finished the lengthy three pages. Finishing the leather prolonged its life. Dying it often made it more aesthetically pleasing. Better looking leather pieces fetched higher prices. And, most importantly, if she stained or dyed leather, she could sometimes use cheaper or inferior pieces of leather that were labeled such because of scuffs and scrapes. Staining was well known to hide scuffs, marks and imperfections. However, the pitfall was that if one used to different pieces of leather cut from different preserved skins, it was all but nearly impossible to dye or stain them the exact same color. So Nya made a mental note that if she was going to be piecing together leather that had to match when stained or dyed, it had to come from all the same skins.

That would be hard to remember, especially for a leatherworker just starting out. Half the projects she had planned Nya was going to make from scraps. That meant she needed to keep track of scraps not by size but rather by what skin it came from so all the scraps from one skin in particular would be kept together in case they ever needed to be dyed.

The second major thing she took home from the introduction to polishing and coloring leather was that not all leather took stain and dyes the same way. So it was important to keep the small scrapings and scraps from her projects in order to make sure she had little pieces to test dye and test stain. All that made sense, though it was far more than the kelvic had ever had to worry about before. Leatherworking was actually a very involved skill, one she knew she could grow into, but it would take time.

Instead of reading on, Nya paused to get her dyes out that had come from James’ last run on the Veronica. He had acquired them somewhere in Riverfall and they had come with instructions. Each color was carefully labeled with instructions on how to either add the powders in the jars to water or alcohol. And separately from them, on a parchment, was a mixing chart so she could take the core colors she had and mix them to gain even more colors. There was enough dye for several large batches, but not more than that. Nya knew she would need to be frugal with her supplies if she was going to offer the settlers brightly colored leather pieces.

Moving back to the book, Nya read the first section. Like her dyes indicated, there were two different types of dye used for coloring leather. One was water based and one was alcohol based… and there were differences between the two. For example, Nya quickly saw from her research that water-based dye didn’t permeate the leather as deeply as the alcohol-based dye would. The tradeoff was that water based dye remained softer and didn’t alter the smell of the leather. Alcohol based dye often changed the leather to a pungent smell and could potentially stiffen up the leather. As a result, soft muted colors looked well dyed with water-based dye while alcohol based dyes gave rich vibrant hues. That made it all the more clear that Nya would have to test dye each thing she wanted to color to get the best combination and coloring.

The first step to dying anything was to lightly spray or wipe down the leather with a sponge so the dye could be applied on the surface evenly. Damp leather took the dye better and helped it spread out without looking patchy or uneven colored in streaks. Dye was mixed in whatever way the leatherworker wanted to apply it and then applied with long strokes, meeting the edges but not overlapping them. If one applied dye overlapping pieces, then the seams would tend to darken because they would get a buildup of dye where the strokes overlapped. Nya could understand that. And upon further reading, Nya realized that often multiple coats needed to be made to actually get the depth of color the leatherworker wanted.

Nya quickly realized that she would need a multitude of brushes and daubers would have to be acquired in order to actually dye leather the way she wanted too. Her leatherworking kit didn’t include such things, nor did she think The Mercantile stocked them. It might be possible to make brushes, but Nya would need to acquire coarse hair, and most of the forest animals had fur instead.

And finally, in dying or staining leather, Nya would have to actually move it and flex it while it was drying so the leather would not stiffen in a way she didn’t desire. Conversely though, once she dyed her bracers, if she let them dry while wrapped around her arms, the pieces would dry conforming to her shape and fit her perfectly. The thought pleased Nya greatly. It was an inadvertent discovery. Leather could be damped and shaped as it dried to make its fit better. The Kelvic made a mental note and continued onward, flipping more pages.

She was shocked to see that leather could also be painted and gilded. Paint was applied just like dyes when it was water based. They could be diluted or thickened to obtain depth or lack thereof. And if the leather was again flexed while the paint was drying, it would not dry stiff and flake off. Gilding was more popular though. It had a more complex system of application. One took glue and added it to the area to be gilded. Once applied, Nya would need to wait until it became tacky. Once tacky, thin leaves of gold could be applied with tweezers. The leaf could be trimmed just like paper. Once applied to the tacky glue, it was pressed in. Once applied, the area was rubbed and the excess was gently brushed away and saved. After it dried, gilded leather could be rubbed to polish it. When gilding, applying light gilding would make the leather look polished. Applying heavier coats of gold would make the leather piece seem antiqued. After one gilded, clear finishes of lacquer were applied to both the paint and the gilding.

Nya smiled. She didn’t have alcohol, but she had water, and she was more than willing to decorate her bracers. She took them out, opened them up by unlacing them, and carefully drew an outline – a simple silhouette – of a forest cat on each one with her charcoal stick. Then she carefully mixed up a bit of the black powder for dye into a small shell filled with water and used a clump of grass carefully wrapped around a twig and tied off with scrap leather for a brush. She then dipped the brush in the shell full of dye and began to stain the forest cats black. Once that was done, she rinsed the impromptu grass brush, mixed up some blue, and made the forest cat’s backgrounds a deep blue. When the blue was on, she went back through with a small bit of green just to give the forest cat a mottled background to show up against. Once she was done dying, Nya placed the bracers on her arms, carefully laced them back up, and let them dry to conform to her arm shape.

While they dried, the Forest Cat cut out more of them, determined to get some finished for the mercantile to earn some extra money. It would take her the rest of the day and part of the next, but she was able to use some of her scratch leather and make more bracers. They weren’t fancy, but they were dyed nicely with all sorts of patterns when she was done and more than presentable enough to be sold to other settlers.

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[Nya Winters]

Grading

Experience: Leatherworking +5, Sewing +5, Planning +3, Researching +4

Lore: Leatherworking: Saddle Stitch, Leatherworking: Saddle stitch will hold even if stitches get cut, Leatherworking: Why Laces, Leatherworking: Overcast Stitching, Leatherworking: Cross stitching, Leatherworking: Buttonhole Stitching, Leatherworking: Lacing Should Be Finished By Flattening, Leatherworking: Box Stitching, Leatherworking: Finishing Leather Prolongs Its Life, Leatherworking: More aesthetically pleasing = higher price, Leatherworking: Staining Can Hide Flaws, Leatherworking: Staining/Dying/Painting Often Produced Different Colors On Different Pieces Of Hide = Use All The Same Hide For The Same Projects, Leatherworking: Two Types of Dying (alcohol or water)

Payoff: Simple leather bracers (+ couple pair to sell), Leather Holder For Tools