Donate a belt to help those effected by Queensland flooding

"Donate a Belt"

So many people have been affected by the recent flooding and Tropical Cyclone Yasi.

Many communities have been devastated.

Some families have lost everything.

The ultimate gift, give freely, creates a ripple effect that will provide a positive change!

You can help make a positive difference by donating a belt to these effected people.

REQUIREMENTS

Make a belt or belts or any size for children or adults male or female.

Required width 35-38 mm... of your design, plain belt, carved belt, braided belt or plaited belt.

The decisions is yours to create, make and donate.

Please make a belt that you would be proud and happy to give to your own family and  close friends.

Please pay attention to finishing the edges.

To be completed by 10th July for display at the Dimensions in Leather Conference.

If you are not attending the conference, please post to

18 Daffodil Crescent Calamvale QLD 4116.... no later than 1st July

Lets revel in the positive pride that comes from giving freely, and giving without the need of  reward.

The Leathercraft Association of Queensland committee will manage the disbursement of the donated belts.

Committee members will not receive any remuneration for their service.

Jim Linnell Workshop in Miles City, MT

A couple weeks ago  Jim Linnell held a leather carving class at the historic Miles City Saddlery in Miles City, MT. Miles City is Jim's hometown and he goes back to visit the week before the Rocky Mountain Leather Trade Show in Sheridan, WY.  A couple years ago Jim taught a class there on how he carved the cover of 2009 Tandy catalog . Several of the people that attended thought it would be fun to make it an annual event. It didn't work out last year, because the weekend before the Sheridan show was the annual Miles City Bucking horse sale but it did work  out this year. Miles City Saddlery has a lot of leather  history. Several of the old masters worked there including Ken Griffin and F. O. Baird. Jim decided to work up a pattern  based on  the style used by some of the old masters that have worked in this shop. He came up with a pattern that had a classic floral pattern surrounding a figure carving of a bronc rider.  In the class, Jim showed us techniques that would  have been used by the old masters to carve and tool  a pattern like this.   He showed us how a "crowner" tool was used to create scallops on leaves. Jim used a lot of different tools in carving the floral parts of the pattern to show that you can use the tools you have and don't necessarily have to run out and buy specific tools for every pattern you carve. The figure carving portion of the pattern is fairly simplistic as it would have been done in that time period. The back and inside pocket of the notebook was decorated  with a swivel knife design. All the notebooks created in this class were stamped with a special limited edition maker stamp created specially for this class that will not be used ever again, making these pieces somewhat collectible.  You don't have to be around Jim long before you realize he has a  passion for teaching leather carving. Hopefully we'll get to do something like this again next year.  Thanks Jim for doing these classes and thanks Jack for allowing us to gather at Miles City Saddlery!

Here's my completed notebook.

And the inside.

Quarter Horse Lesson is now available

Just wanted to let everyone know that Lesson #7, the Quarter Horse, is now available for download on the  Badlands Leather Art website.  In this lesson, we offer you a choice as to how far you would like to bring the horse off the background leather. We are also including  a second tracing pattern to give you even more options for this project. This is a fairly easy lesson to work on and would be a good choice for anyone who has been thinking about trying extreme embossing but been worried they couldn't do it.  It  will be the subject of one of the classes I'll be teaching in Australia in July.

Lesson #8 will be an African Lion and I'll start writing it in the near future. I'm hoping to have it ready before I leave for Australia.

Lesson #8 will be an African Lion

I traveled back to Billings early Friday morning to start working on lesson # 8 in our series. We're trying to vary our subjects to keep things interesting and hopefully we'll come up with something that everyone interested in trying this type of leather work will enjoy. This next lesson will be on an African Lion. I really enjoyed working on this one with Jan. One of the challenges in this project is the long, shaggy hair on the mane. It starts out with sort of a star in the center and goes out in all directions from there with varying lengths. It's some of the longest hair I've done on one of these projects. The mane is also interesting to paint with all the different shades of color. I decided to concentrate on taking notes and pictures of the coloring process while Jan was painting his, so I painted my at home today.

This project was actually one of the quickest ones to finish that we've done so far. We finished up early Saturday afternoon and I made it back home in time to go out to supper with my wife and son and then go and watch the grand march at my daughter's prom. It's hard to imagine that my little girl, my youngest child, will be graduating from high school in 2 weeks!

Jan has created a few lion pictures and they have been good sellers for him. I remember one full body lion he did a few years ago that took first place at a big fair in Montana. This is the first African lion I've finished, but I'm looking forward to trying it again in a little more relaxed setting. The top picture is Jan's. The one below is the one I did.