My First Knife Sheath

My first leather knife sheath I tooled was probably my favorite thing to make up to this point. It was a 4.5" knife sheath with a floral design. It was a little time consuming and a little frustrating when I made a few mistakes but overall, I really enjoyed this particular leather project. The main tools I used during this project were my swivel knife, mallet, beveling tool, and several stamping tools which gave my leather the appropriate background/texture I desired.

I started out by sketching my design on to vellum tracing paper which is a very thick paper that doesn't tear very easily. It is great when working with leather because the vellum paper holds the design and doesn't rip like regular paper when tracing the design onto the leather. Plus vellum paper is see-through so you can see where you are tracing your design at on your leather.

Once I got my design sketched onto the leather, I used my swivel knife to cut the design. I used the beveling tool to give the floral design a 3D look. I used the other stamping tools to provide my design a "background" and to give more texture to the leaves and stem of my flower on the sheath. Once the whole leather was tooled, I put leather stain and finish over the design and sewed the sheath together. It turned out really good and I was happy with what I accomplished with this particular project. I plan to make more sheaths in the future but with different designs and sizes.