Laying out your Pattern
Lay your piece of leather on a flat surface (see below). In most cases you will be able to determine which end was the head and which was the tail of the animal. When an animal is skinned it is usually cut from the neck to the groin on the underbelly portion of the skin. When you lay your hide out, the middle portion will be the part that covered the back of the animal. This is considered the backbone of the hide and runs from Head to Tail. It is the thickest portion of the hide. The part on the outside edges of the hide would have been the underbelly skin and is the thinnest part. The hide will have a slight stretch when pulled from side to side. There is very little if no stretch when pulled from the Head to the tail end of the hide.
When laying out your glove pattern you want to take advantage of the stretch ability of the hide. When you put your hand inside the glove and make a fist the leather should expand across the width created from the action. To achieve this, lay your trank so the fingers are pointing to either the head or the tail of the animal hide as illustrated in the diagram. Avoid any holes or scaring. The forchettes and thumb pattern pieces can be placed (as close together as possible to conserve leather) in the belly portion of the hide. As we stated earlier, the hide is thinnest in this portion making these pieces more flexible. Flexibility is important for these pieces because these pieces are in the part of the hand that endure the most stress when used, so less resistance will allow less ripping.
Unless your hands are extremely different sizes, you can use one pattern for both hands. To get a leather pattern piece for the opposite hand, just flip the pattern over. The same action is recommended for the forchettes and the thumb. In this way you have fewer pattern pieces to keep track of.
Once the pattern is layed out, you can trace it onto the hide. I use tailor chalk most of the time. It can be brushed off and leaves no mark. The times I use a fine pen I make sure I trim all the ink off the pieces I will be sewing together.
Laying out the Glove Pattern on a hide of leather