First belly

So I moved forward on my whip but Bryony had a visitor and couldn't move forward yet on hers. I cut out a bolster and taped it on. (Once again, I won't use tape for this sort of thing when using leather). This process is a bit of a conundrum for me. I don' t know how long to make the bolsters, exactly what shape to make them, how to measure them, etc.  I basically wrapped a piece of paper around the first braid (the core) and marked it with a fold. Then I used that as my measurement for the handle width. Then I just guessed on the length, tapered it to a point, and stuck it on. I did not tape the back of the bolster because I'm worried about thickness.

Next, I cut out strips for a belly. In this case I went 4.5 feet in length. The reason I went with this length is because that's the width of the faux-leather we got. I did the same process for cutting this out (measured, taped the back, tapered, cut) but did 8 strands instead of 4:

Then it was plaiting time again. I attached it to the handle with the same method as the core (duct-tape) and then plaited. I dropped from 8 strands to 6 part way down.

Toward the end I ended up breaking one of the strands, so I backed up the plaiting a bit, added a new strand, plaited over it for a bit and then picked it up to replace the broken one.

Here's the finished belly.

By the time I was done my fingers were bruised and so sore I could hardly pick stuff up. That's the price you pay for whip making.