Spiked Collar - Tumblr Posts
A goth-punk set of spiked collar and armbands I made for a themed party/LARP. They're made of 1 inch wide leather bands, stained black, with mirror-finish nickel-plated spikes, buckles and rivets. The cone spikes are sized at 1 inch, 1/2 inch, and short.
I think they look cool, but I don't really know if I'll have much chance to wear them. I should maybe convince some friends to all mob to a goth club or something.
I enjoyed making them, but I think I likely won't work very hard to sell them or similar pieces. They aren't very much in genre with most of my other stuff, and they're not super original or anything. I feel like there isn't much reason for someone to go to me to make these rather than just going to Hot Topic or wherever. Of course, I could be convinced otherwise. And I might play around with more inventive designs in this sort of vein.
This buckled collar necklace is intense. Vegetable-tanned leather primarily, with black deerskin leather lining. Partly it's a prototype for a commission someone asked about, partly it's testing out an idea I've had for a while, and partly it's just a ridiculous item for myself. Breaking it down:
Someone asked for a collar-style necklace with a similar sort of pattern to a hatchwork pattern I designed a while ago. But they asked about doing it in two layers, with a contrasting color showing through the cut-outs of the top layer of leather. Also, they wanted a backing of a soft leather, which I'd not really worked with at all. Since I haven't done those things before, I figured I should make a prototype to check that it would work.
One of the many silly ideas that's been bouncing around my head for at least a year has been making something with huge chunky spikes. I can buy punk-style spikes in a variety of styles, but I've been unable to find anywhere that makes large, squat conical spikes, of the sort of proportions that Bowser of Mario Bros fame has on his armbands and shell. I've thought that it should be possible to make them out of leather sewn to shape, but hadn't gotten around to trying it yet.
Also, I was feeling like it was time for me to make something fun for myself. And I just got a couple new colors of leather dye, one of which was Chartreuse, and since bright green is my favorite color I really wanted to use it on something.
The way I did the lining was to fold the deerskin leather around the edge of the stiffer veg-tan leather, and sew through the resulting 3 layers at the same time. This lining piece is made long enough to overlap itself under the buckle when worn, so the soft leather gets complete coverage over the tooling leather. The top piece is sewn on top of this pair of layers. This is also done at the same time. So really you're sewing through 4 layers of leather for most of the time. It took a long time. But it looks reeeeeally nice, and it gives a very smooth rolled-over edge of super soft liner. All in all, it took like 4 hours of hand sewing. Which was ridiculous. But cutting all the holes ahead of time with the laser cutter meant that everything is super consistent and clean.
Oh, and at the end there is a pair of bracelets that I threw together the evening I finished up the collar. I'd had the blanks lying around left over from a tooling demonstration I helped with, and I used them to test out a wax-based leather finish that I hadn't used much before. I've been wearing them around for a couple weeks now to see how it holds up. I think it might be a better finish to use for straps than what I've been using, but it has the disadvantage of darkening the leather noticeably.
Anyway. Long post there. Tried some things, learned some things. I'll be editing some stuff to make it slightly quicker to assemble. I may decide to get a more straightforward lined collar concept worked out and put it up on my Etsy page, but I'm not sure yet. If you like this huge-spikes concept, though, drop me a note and I'll be happy to do a custom order.
Here’s an outfit with a bunch of my personal pieces. Most of these things I haven’t posted online before. The occasion for me wearing these was the anniversary party at the Wildfire Retreat this last weekend. (Wildfire is a spinning arts event that happens a couple times a year in New England. It has lots of juggling workshops and fire spinning.)
The shirt is made primarily of black anodized aluminum and black neoprene rubber, with an insignia inlaid into it made of blackened stainless steel. The pattern is a European 4-in-1 weave. When I made it originally I ran out of rings before being able to fill in the back completely, but I kind of liked it like that. So I have a pile of more rings sitting in my basement in case I decide to do that.
The horned headband is similar to this one, but with more horns.
The leather thing on my left arm was something I made the day I got a strap cutter. It links together with snaps, and was a lot of fun, but the sizing was super specific so I haven’t bothered offering it to the general public.
The arm bands and collar are your typical goth spike type of item. I thought I’d put them up on my Etsy, but it looks like I hadn’t. I don’t usually make much of a point of keeping those spikes in stock, though, so that’s probably fine.
The belt is in stainless steel in a Persian 6-in-1 sheet weave. It’s a very thick weave with a really nice texture and some interesting bending physics. It’s also the most time consuming weave I’ve ever made anything substantial out of. It took about an hour for every couple inches.
The rainbow tail is maybe the only of these things I’ve posted before. Here it is in another post. The diamond-shaped spade tip is made of birch plywood.
I finally decided to put this Bowser spiked collar up for sale. It was a lot of fun to make, though it did take a very long time to stitch everything together. I’ve enjoyed having it around my room, but haven’t had much occasion to wear it, and so it’s time to let someone else have it if they want.
It’s made of vegetable-tanned leather, with a lining of very soft deerskin for maximum comfort. For more description and thoughts on it, you can check my previous post of this collar.
I put together a whole bunch of leather collars for ANE. This style was, unsurprisingly, everyone's favorite. Made 4 of them, sold them all. I still had enough spikes at home for one more though, so I figured I'd throw it up for sale while I wait by the mailbox for supplies.
Etsy link
\m/ The bogler baby is from the cursed dragon hybrids thread.
