A crafty lifestyle blog
A sailmaker’s palm is a tool used by rope makers, who often need to shove needles through very thick material. This can be hard to do with regular thimbles. The sailmaker’s palm positions a custom thimble into the meat of the thumb, where a lot of force can easily be applied without hurting one’s hands.
At Pennsic this year, two of the leatherworking merchants got together and held a Leatherworker’s Roundtable – a simple gathering of leatherworkers, to meet, ask questions, and discuss techniques with one another for two hours. It was fantastic! Here are my notes on the new tips I learned. Resources The Metropolitan Museum of Art has
Leather water bottle holders are my all-time favorite piece of leatherworking, for practicality and sheer awesomeness. It allows one to hide a modern water bottle without resorting to using glass (which is heavy and breakable) or the hardened-leather carriers (which can degrade with time, though they are also a great choice). The water bottle can
Medieval sword belts were often made with many buckles so that they could strap down onto different sword sheaths and be re-used (if you had to make everything from scratch, you’d make sure it could be re-used, too!). In the Society for Creative Anachronism, which does medieval recreation, many rapier fighters use this type of
In May I repaired this pair of shoes! There was a tiny hole in the top of one of the shoes, and one of the buckle straps had broken. Patches don’t need to be boring! I added a patch in the shape of a heart. It looks like it was deliberately made with the original
Last month I posted about my beginning adventures with leather pyrography – burning designs into leather. The designs I had previously posted were all made with a cheap soldering iron (the kind you can buy at most big stores). A few months ago, though, my awesome parents got me a professional pyrography tool for my
The other class I taught at Northwoods Community College was about tanning (tawing) my first deer hide. I threw together the notes from the main website I used, along with links to other sources I’d found. This was very much a “learn my mistakes along with me” class. Before I get to how the class
Someone I know asked for SCAdians (SCA-people) to make beads for her daughter’s 18th birthday. I believe the results were strung up like Viking beads on a dress. Knowing the daughter, I really wanted to make something for her. My problem: I don’t do anything with beads. It’s one of the few crafts I am
Here is a custom leather knife sheath I made as a prize for Grand Tournament, an SCA event last November. The knife was made by another accomplished leatherworker and blacksmith of our Barony, who asked me to make the sheath as part of a joint prize. I started by thoroughly soaking the leather in water, getting it