Ever since I finished the custom leather brogue style seat cover I made for the RAWR build last year I’ve wanted to do another and step up the madness!

 

The old GT drop nose seat I had put aside for my Profile 24″ build seemed like the perfect opportunity, particularly considering my rad little bro had recently dug out my old leather tools and mailed them over from New Zealand.

 

I messed around with a lot of different design concepts (William Morris-esque florals, Dia de Muertos sugar skull patterns, mendhi mandalas) before I found and old T+ (Paris public transport) ticket in the pocket of my jacket and the perfect design concept hit me. It’s tricky trying to find a pattern or symbol that’ll fit within the strange shape of a bike seat, but a Fleur de Lis would fit perfectly!

 

First the design, hand drawn to fit…

 

 

Then wet moulding a beautiful piece of vegetable tanned Kangaroo leather to fit the seat…

 

 

Then carefully tooling the design into the damp leather…

 

 

Letting it dry…

 

 

Hand dying and detailing the dry leather…

 

 

Glazed, before buffing and fitting…

 

 

And the finished product… (so stoked with it!)

 

 

The finished seat is everything I hoped it’d be and goes off like a chic firecracker beside the sea foam green of the Profile frame. Really looking forward to designing and making another one soon for my Prody build!