Ok, so I’m pretty much vegan these days.
BUT I have a serious weakness for leather.
RANT ALERT. Seriously, it’s no secret that I’m not into killing and/or mistreating our animal friends. I think the way the meat industry works in this day and age is straight up sick and wrong.
Now, if I were starving out in the woods would I rather die than kill and eat an animal? Certainly not.
Here’s what a lot of folks don’t understand: The whole starving-in-the-woods situation is totally different than choosing to pay someone to raise mistreated animals only to kill them for you so you can eat meat and not think about or deal with the animal you are consuming. As a consumer, it’s impossible to honor the animal when you are totally removed from its life and death. This store-bought disconnect is just so sad for the animal AND the meat eater.
Oh yeah - and that’s not even including the whole host of nasty environmental issues that arise from the unnecessary over-population and over-concentration of certain “livestock” on our planet.
Anyway, it’s for these reasons that I never buy new leather. I usually get it second hand. Politics aside, it is a superior material in a lot of ways and I figure it’s better not to waste it once its already been created. (Yes – people do see me wearing it and no - they don’t know that it’s recycled and, yes, this theoretically does encourage other people in their consumption of meat/leather products. No comment. Don’t really know what to do about it.)
My one request: Please, if you’re going to use this pattern, DON’T use brand new leather that you bought anonymously from the store. Find it, recycle it, hunt it and tan it yourself -whatever. Just be connected to and ok with where it came from. Or, heck, use the fake stuff. =)
Finally! The Tutorial!
Stuff you’ll need:
Medium-sized scraps of leather
Leather punch
Scissors
Step 1: Stand in front of a mirror with your leather. Hold the biggest piece up to your torso and decide which side is up. Often times the extreme edges of the hide will be the most interesting-looking and the least desirable to serious leatherworkers because of the (neato) inconsistencies. I used one of these edges for the bottom of my top.
Step 2: Cut a flattened triangular yoke from a smaller scrap. Make the top and the bottom about an inch longer than you’d like the finished product to be. You will be folding these edges over.
Step 3: Make a leather thong. No, not the underwear kind. A leather thong is a piece of leather “thread” that you use to sew pieces of leather together. The good news is you don’t need to buy this separately because you can make it yourself from a scrap of leather! Basically, you cut the scrap into a circle and start cutting it into a spiral shape – eventually ending up with a long strip of leather. I found a very nifty picture of this process on PaleoPlanet:
Stretch the cord out once you’re done cutting. Leather is very stretchy (especially in small pieces) and if you don’t stretch it out ahead of time, it’ll stretch out by itself. If it does this after you’ve sewn with it, all your seams will gap open. Bad.
Step 3: Now you’re ready to attach the yoke to the body of your top. I had to cut a straight line into the top of my halter where I wanted my yoke to be attached so that the seam would be a straight one. Once you have that worked out, fold the bottom edge of your yoke up (to the right side). Place the folded-over edge on top of the top edge of the body of your top. (I said top three times!) Use your hole punch to pre-punch the holes you are going to be sewing into to attach the yoke to the body.
I used a fancy embroidery stitch to give the top some pizzazz. It’s a modified lazy daisy stitch. I found good tutorials for this stitch here and here.
(Tip: If you’re having difficulty pushing the thong through your pre-punched holes, you can use your scissors to shape the end of your thong into a point. This can help smooth things along.)
Step 4: Make another leather thong for the halter part. Fold the top edge of yoke back (to the wrong side) over your halter thong, creating an encasement for it. I used a simple slip stitch to secure this part of my halter. You can see the pattern in this picture:
Step 5: Secure the back ties. I used a natural hole in the hide as one of my securement points. You can do this or punch a hole yourself in either side. Using another leather thong, fold the thong in half and push the fold through one of the holes about half way. Take the tail ends of your thong and poke them through the loop that should be sticking out of the hole. Pull the ends tight. Repeat for the other side.
ALL DONE!! Each one of these will look different depending on the hide you use, the shape you cut it, the length you choose for the bodice, etc. The possibilities are endless!
Let me know how it goes for you if you decide to give this a try. =)
