Waxing the Thread’ is a modern, practical, workshop magazine for hobbyists of traditional leatherwork. There’s plenty to keep you busy again in this issue including 2 step-by-step Projects and a further 2 Pattern Pages. Project 1 in issue #6 involves fitting a zip. As you’ve come to expect, we’ve given you a step-by-step guide with colour photos to help you as you work through it. Having done it once, we hope you’ll feel confident enough to turn to page 28 and try fitting a slightly different style of zip in Project 2. After this you’ll be able to include zips in your own patterns or designs. Both of these zip Projects include steps for basic leather linings. Project 2 looks more complicated than it really is. Once you’ve read and understood how the overlap for the back seam works, we think you’ll enjoy this project. If this is the first time you’ll be stitching with one hand inside the bag, don’t worry, as we’ve given you a few tips to make the task a little easier. The first Pattern Page gives you an opportunity to use up some larger pieces of surplus leather, by making easy gifts for book-lovers and one of them involves no stitching at all! The Man’s Leather Jerkin on pattern Page 2 is an interesting project which offers plenty of stitching practise – we’ll leave you to decide whether to get the sewing machine out for this one. Each of the Projects and the first of the Pattern Pages state which materials (and leather substances) we’ve used when making the projects ourselves – we’ve even included which company we purchased the leather from! Mark Papworth has again contributed to this issue with a very thought provoking article about surplus leather – this certainly got us thinking… We’ve included information on edge finishing, channeling and grooving tools and for those of you who enjoy lacing their projects (see Project 1), an article about kangaroo leather; known for its strength, despite being very lightweight. If you’re a regular reader of the feature pages we hope you’ll enjoy reading about our conversation with Charlie Trevor of Equus leather and maybe even take up the challenge of making a leather Flacket as described by contributor Rob Exton – a truly fascinating article. As always, we’ve included the ‘Readers Pages’, where you can meet Terry Owen and learn about his new business, see what’s been selected for this issue of the Readers’ Workbench page.
