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.