GW

Hand-tooled leather portrait of George Washington.

Hand-Stitched Leather Picnic Set

Update of the turn-of-the-century picnic set for an equestrian.  Stainless steel insulated containers wrapped in natural saddle leather with a hand-tooled custom monogram, along with a hand-stitched double carabiner.  It can all be treated with the same conditioner as the saddle, and will age beautifully.

The canisters are all stitched with a classic gaucho weave.

 Sketch of AW monogram

Arts & Crafts Oak Table with Tooled Leather Top

When we found this Arts & Crafts Oak Table in the Adirondacks, only remnants of the original leather were left.  We added a new hand-colored leather top, and hand-tooled a Candace Wheeler carp on the top to give it a little more character.

Detail of Tooled Leather Top

Another Detail of Tooled Leather Top

Well Used Desk Blotter

Hand-stitched, hand-tooled desk blotter.  Leaf pattern borrowed from a Tiffany silver set, c. 1900.  

Hand-tooled Notebook Cover

The Hurricane

Hand-tooled goatskin belt buckle.

Hand-tooled Waste Paper Basket

This was one of my first tooling commissions.  A hexagonal waste paper basket.  Hand-stitched and hand-tooled with rambling rose vines.  After 18 years, it is just starting to look good.  

Hand-tooled Leather Wall

 Heavy vegetable-tanned leather,  extra deep tooled letters
The more they wax this wall, the richer the color gets.  

Tooled Monogram

Hand-tooled monogram PJG on the top leather panel of a custom bridal chest we designed and fabricated.

Tooled Mirror Frame

Hand-tooled leather frame after Archibald Knox.  

Tooling Rose Valley

I was lucky enough to be asked to recreate the tooled back on this very special Rose Valley Arm Chair.

We started by going through the original images and records at the Antheneum of Philadelphia.  The Antheneum is one of the great institutions in Philadelphia and America for history and antiquities.  Based on matching the grain patterns on the chair with the chairs in the original photographs, we were able to find images of the exact chair, from the Main Hall of the John O. Gilmore House, 1901.  The tooled panel was visible, but only faintly.

We also found images of what looks like the same acanthus pattern on another chair that had much greater detail.  

Using these two sources, I drew the basic pattern full scale on graph paper.

I transfered the pattern to a thick natural leather and carved the basic outlines

I then started working the edges and creating the background pattern.

After completing the background, I started on the detail work.  

After many layers of color, I get close to the color I want to use.

The next part is the MOST important.  Cutting the back pattern to fit the chair.  If you miscalculate the cutting, there is no way to fix it --you would have to start over.  Measure 3 or 4 times, and cut once.  

  Because we had period images of the chair, we were able to locate the original holes for the nailheads.  Using templates, we aligned the nailheads back into their original configuration.