Carved leather pirate belt for Tim

Here’s a leather belt I carved for a good mate, Tim, who want­ed a pirate motif. This was heaps of fun to carve out and one of the most enjoy­able projects I’ve ever under­tak­en. I start­ed out at one end, with the sail­ing ship, and just moved down the belt, most­ly free­hand (except for the com­pass rose and stamps — the tf ini­tials and skull-and-cross­bones) and just loved every minute of it. A fun­ny lit­tle side effect of my tool­ing is that the buck­le tongue, at the size of my mate’s waist, comes out in the per­fect posi­tion to make the mer­maid­’s gen­der just a lit­tle bit ambigu­ous! ???‍♀️