Is opening up a big box of leather. A full hide, in fact. The tack store smell just wafts out of it. It's beautiful. The dark marks on the second quality hide that I purchased? Not so much. I knew it would have those marks going into it and I chose the hide anyway. I figured that I could work around them, but I just didn't realize that they'd be so...everywhere. This is one of the largest and most concentrated areas (hand for scale, wet spot is a test area for lemon juice), but they're scattered over a good 2/3 of the hide. There are maybe a couple of square feet of clean leather in the whole thing.
Next time I decide to do something on the cheap and save a bit of money, I'm not going to assume I can work around something sight unseen! This will be a great learning experience, right?
I have been told that they will dye over with dark dyes and can be gotten out with diluted lemon juice. On to experimenting! If the lemon juice doesn't work and you see lots and lots of black and havana saddles out of me over the next 8 or 12 months, you'll know why.
The yellow cat was almost as excited by the big box as I was, and insisted on helping. He got his own little piece of leather to hopefully keep him out of the good stuff.
And did his best to "help."
Hehe, that is exactly the way that my kitties help when I am messing with leather. Frances always has to get her own piece or she's just a lurking terror. All of her favorite toys are made of leather- I think she's as intoxicated by the smell as we are, although perhaps for different reasons.
ReplyDeleteToo bad with those dark spots! Hopefully you will be able to remove them or just put dark dye on top of them! Is it a calf hide?
ReplyDeleteI believe it is calf, Shanti, and aside from the marks is lovely. They are coming out with the lemon juice, fortunately! I was told that a 50/50 solution works well; I was doing a 2/3, heavy on the water, so I bet the 50/50 solution will work even better.
ReplyDeleteHi Anna,
ReplyDeleteHow thick is it? I'm having a hard time finding a new source of really thin calf. The shop I bought my last lot from just had a random few pieces and I bought all of them. But now they're getting smaller and smaller....
Lauren
This particular hide, being a second, isn't entirely even. Most parts of it are ~1mm, though. I still have to skive it down for my purposes, but it's probably good to go for most Traditional and Classic scale tack.
ReplyDelete