Aventurine

@Aven Thank you very much, I will get that book!

@fredk That would be a great treasure. I also used to have folders of SCA stuff...long gone unfortunately.

This is a case where Tandy's not bad.

Thank you.

Thank you, MarshalWill.

Good idea, sheaths first of all. I've got 1200 grit crocus cloth...I'll get finer grit stuff for the fine work in tight spaces. Thank you, TomE and Zuludog.

Thank you.

Animal bladder can be transparent or at least translucent, too, if it's stretched and oiled, not "broken" which makes it white.

Arctic women made/make parkas from the gut of walrus, large seals, and bears as waterproof coverings for the men while hunting in a kayak or boat. They are very transparent. I was fortunate enough to see some of them years ago at a traditional craft festival in Alaska. My god, the work; the stitches were nearly microscopic. There are some at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa too. I think they even have a full body waterproof suit there. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=tsaconf

Follow-up...how useful has this book been to those that bought it? How much do the instructions rely upon previous skills and experience as a leathercrafter?

How many different patterns does Sharon's book have?

Anyone familiar with these books -- which of these will have more actually usable patterns or guidance for making patterns? They are both expensive so I need to make a careful choice.

It does exist. It is expensive and almost impossible to obtain unless you are a design house buying it wholesale. It is naturally weak but strengthened by treating it with lactic acid derivatives or impregnating it with polyurethane, so in the end it is a rather highly processed product, and depending on how it is dyed it is not necessarily environmentally friendly. https://www.mycoworks.com/products. https://mylo-unleather.com/impact/ Another kind of "leather" is amadou, an entirely natural and lusciously suede-like mycelial material traditionally made from horse hoof fungus. I got a piece large enough to bind a book with, and I mean to use the other piece to line a jewelry box. Fly fishers use tiny bits of amadou to wrap their flies because it dries the fly and hook rapidly and imparts a natural odor that won't alarm the trout. Black powder aficionados and traditional survivalists use it as a tinder. Unfortunately, amadou is not tough enough for anything that must bear weight, like a tote bag, or resist stretching, like a belt, or withstand friction, damp, and pressure, like shoes. I am pretty sure it could be made tougher through treatment with natural or lightly processed chemicals, and I mean to fool with it some time to see if I can improve it. But because it takes 100 years to get a fungus big enough to provide enough leather to make a shoe, it isn't environmentally sustainable by any stretch of the imagination. https://medium.com/@istvan.daraban/the-worlds-last-amadou-makers-korond-iii-9694114ffa4a https://www.slowtours.travel/shop/amadou/amadou-hat/ Amadou makes a nice hat. Mycologist Paul Stammets wears one (pictured below). Final note, I love and respect everyone who wishes the world contained less suffering than it has and apparently must have. Leather is an innately brutal thing. We use it out of concession to the innately brutal business of living in this world and seek to make the best of it. Some people take comfort in the idea that this is what their god intends (as if any scripture laid out modern corporate agriculture and industrial slaughter?) or what Nature intends (as if Nature were a sentient thing with intentions, toward us in particular?) but not everyone shares those sentiments, or ought to. If there are better alternatives some day -- truly better, more ethical, more environmentally sustainable, scalable to human population, and involving less animal suffering -- not just more comfortable for squeamish or frivolously sentimental people -- we ought to embrace them. And I admire people who, however imperfectly or immaturely, struggle toward doing less harm in this life. I certainly admire them more than I admire people who simply equate the conventional with the good.

Thank you all so much!

Thank you, BillyBob. Now you’ve got me wondering if my big paper cutter table might be useful……