Leather penguin
A Linux guy needs his penguin, right?
I found this pattern [1] on etsy and thought it would be a fun project to make a little companion.
The leather I'm using for this is a 2-3oz veg-tanned goat skin. It is a little too thin to make a robust penguin, but I rather want it soft and squeeze-friendly than robust. That's how I prefer to have my companions.
The steps
Print out the pattern and tape to the leather. Punch the holes before cutting:
Cut out all parts:
Time to dye! Yellow feets and neb. Other colored parts will be black:
I use white waxed linen thread that I dye for the feets and neb.
The penguin does already looks happy :-) :
The rest is to stitch all parts together.
Before I finished sewing everything, I stuffed it with cotton and a big glass ball to give it some weight.
The result
And yes. Penguins need their hat.
Things to improve
Dye both sides of the leather. In this project I did only dye the top grain leather. Some of the holes are not dyed completely.
Use round punch instead of diamond, it would have been much easier to sew.