Hi Dave, your hand engraving 'sheridan style' looks really wonderful. As I also make leather tooling I don't get to understand how did you lift up these flower petals.
Thank you
This is not "Sheridan " style. Sheridan style is very round and has lots of stickers and leaves with the flowers that are usually round and in the middle of the scroll design. This is known as California floral pattern, The Visalia Stock Saddle Co. is well known for this. Stanley Diaz is credited with developing the pattern for them, just one of the many noted makers that worked for Visalia.
Please post photos of the set, and finished on the saddle if you get them, I would love to see how they turn out. That style and look of engraving is intriguing to me, I was told some time back by a saddle maker/engraver that the californian floral leather carving style does not transfer over to engraving very well, but from what I see it works quite well.