Tooled Leather as an Accent

June 6, 2025

Walt and I have spent the last couple of weeks in Yellowstone enjoying some well-deserved time together.  While we were there, the town of Gardiner, MT, where we stay, had their "Hell's A Roarin'" celebration where they turn loose a bunch of horses to run through the town in sort of the same thing that happens at Pamplona with the running of the bulls.  It's really fun and full of cowboys, cowgirls, horses and other neat western stuff.  

So Walt and I get our cameras for some fun with the whole event.  But for me, it's all about the clothing and guess what?  I found something so fabulous I can't wait to copy it.  

Now I've always had a soft spot in my heart for cowboys.  Walt's an old cowboy but has acclimated himself pretty well to city life, but we still go back to his farm and ranch a lot.  So when I saw this cowboy on his horse with this stunning jacket I nearly had a fit.  Of course this is real tooled leather on this denim jacket and it works great here.  The denim and tooled leather are both authentic cowboy gear.  So this is one style that looks correct because it stays within a theme - cowboy.
 

This cowboy had the coolest jacket I had ever seen, and I wanted one.  Course that collar was fabulous and fell in love with that instantly.

this is a little blurry, but you get the idea.  The under collar is tooled leather.  Of course getting the tooled leather the way I want would be impossible, but I can find a good likeness, have it printed on a canvas or duck-type fabric, and use it on a piece of ponte knit printed with possibly a dulled denim or even an olive, dulled denim for a way cool top.  
 

This is beating a path to my mind as fast as I can write this down.  It's going to be another one of those projects that will be fabulous.  

When I need a printed, "seamless" pattern, one of my favorite sources is CreativeMarket.com.  They have a huge selection, and you don't have to subscribe to get any of the graphics.  You can simply buy them a la carte.  I like this really well, cause sometimes I use a lot and sometimes I don't use any, but whenever I need a quick graphic, I can usually pick it up here.  

My favorite is the lower left, all-over, floral design.  It's fairly realistic, and it's feminine.  I have a place in town, where I can have this printed.  

The denim is the real problem.  Blue is not my color, and no matter how I mask it or make it work, it's not something I can use in my wardrobe.  I match nothing but black.  Green would be far better, as weird and awful as it sounds.  But I can never tell until I look and see what green denim might look like, again from CreativeMarket.com.  

The huge fun here is that I can print this on any fabric I like - ponte, jersey knit, broadcloth, or anything.  I want a rather stiff and formal structure to this project, and I like the idea of making this on the fabric type I like.  

After toying with a whole bunch of ideas, I decided that stretch would be fun, but this jacket deserves a durable and substantial fabric that reflects the original design.

The next part is how to lay out the printing for the fabric.   The fabric printer prints in 4-yard increments, but that's OK, cause I can put about 4 or 5 designs onto the 4 yards - just as much or as little as I need.  The jacket will only take 2 yards, so I'll have the other 2 yards printed in the tooled design.

This looks pretty horrible, but I've done this before and the printer and I have a great way of working this.  But the fabric is 45" wide, but will only print 40" and I'll put two different projects on the 4-yard length.  

So finally we get to the prototype.

The green is a little on the too-Irish side, so I'll tone that down, but this is exactly what I'm looking for.  Those seam pockets are the normal pocket I put in the jacket, but I'll probably do patch pockets for this since they will obviously be on the outside.  And I'm thinking that some gold-toned top stitching on the seams would give that "jeans" look just fine.  

Next is this screams fabulous buttons, so off to Etsy to search for all that.  

A little about my local fabric shop that does the printing: he only prints on man-made fibers as they take the dye well.  For more natural fibers, I use Spoonflower.  And remember silk takes dye the worst of any fabric, so even Spoonflower doesn't do 100% silk.  But the turnaround with my local guy is in a couple of days, which is much faster, and I try to support the local company as much as possible.  His name is Drago from Romania (I think).  He came to make a better life for himself and his family, and selected central Oklahoma for the school system and good economy.  He's on Instagram as @OKFabricMarket and has many reels of his printing machine.  He takes orders over the phone and will send you your printed fabric as soon as it's off the press.  I think the prices are very reasonable, and of course, you can always call the shop and discuss what you want to do.  

I'll keep you up to date on this project because it's really beating a path to get this done!  

The SewingArtistry Resource Library is designed to contain information to not only make your sewing better, but to aid in you fitting and flattering your shape, size and style.  Check it out. 

Look for future classes coming in 2024
The Core Pattern Shirt, (one of my favorites for woven core pattern that you can make into a myriad of different garments), 
Basic Knit Top (core pattern class for knit basic tops, shells, tees, dresses, and tunics)
 

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