Johanna

Would you mind telling us how you did the bricks? I like how you colored them. I really like the piece, and you should be very proud. Johanna

I have heard quite a few members sing the praises of Artisan's extra special customer service. I wish Artisan made lawn mowers, too. I think it is smart to ask people you trust for recommendations, so I agree with Grandpa. They will steer you to the machine that fits your needs and your budget. You could call the next machine "The Steve"- that sounds pretty masculine! Let us know what machine you decide to go with. I'm sure others will want to know the reasons Steve selects the machine for you. Best of luck! Johanna

The SCA is a dynamic organization of historical reenactors who make armor out of leather for "wars" and use leather in many traditional activities. They have meetings and activities all over the world, and members are encouraged to participate under their "persona", a fictional character of the actor's choice of place and time. SCA events are fun for the whole family, and a great opportunity to show off skills for the leatherworker. See Wikipedia for more. Johanna

Yep, thanks, Drac! Looks like I need to update this page. ~J

When we started out, we asked a half dozen members to help out with welcoming people to the board, helping them find their way around and spreading general goodwill and sunshine. I never expected the board to get 1500 unique visitors a day back then, or to be several thousand members strong. (Kate says she knew it would happen all along!) We were lucky to have the help of the original team! But, the board is growing, and new members join and post every day in lots of areas. We asked for help again, and got 9 more volunteers. LW is grateful to all of you who take the time to contribute to the board, and thankful to have such a fine crew of Ambassadors to represent us. There are a lot of people behind the scenes who make this place such a great place to be. Can I have a round of applause for our Ambassador team, please? Our original Ambassadors: Regis (USA) freak (USA) abn (USA) TheMajor (USA) Beaverslayer (Canada) Don101 (Germany) Our new Ambassadors: TomSwede (Sweden) BillB (USA) Pip (UK) leatheroo (Australia) rdb (USA) Luke Hatley (USA) Jordan (USA) TwinOaks (USA) ArtS (USA)

That's a classy seat. I like the little ribbon in the design. Great seat for a good cause. God bless you for caring, Shirley!

Sawyer- that is really nice! Do you have a bigger pic? Don't forget to show it to us after you color it. Johanna

I would make each cup by itself, and with careful measurements of the lady, if possible. I would also line the cups with something like Cabretta for the lady's comfort. Do a Google Image search for Xena for some examples so that you get the look you want. Johanna

My first husband was a carver, and he liked plain water in a spray bottle. When we moved to Georgia, where the air is more damp (mold!) he would put a few drops of baby shampoo in the water. He never dunked anything, never refrigerated any leather, nor did he wrap it in plastic if he was called away. He would just mist it again. He said no two hides were the same, and that you just got a feel for what you needed to do. When I worked at Tandy and gave classes, I issued sponges to wet the leather. Cub Scouts armed with spray bottles are distracting. I knew an expert carver in Georgia who echoed Paul Burnett's theory of "don't wet it all the way through". His shop was outdoors, and he refrigerated wet leather, probably to keep down any mold. He used to tell people that if you wet the leather too much it would be too mushy to hold good impressions. He has passed on now, but I wish he were here to give his observations to this thread. I also had people come to the Tandy and complain about the leather not taking their stamps well and found out they didn't know you had to wet the leather first. There were days it was hard to keep a straight face. I met a man who bought distilled water to case with because his well water would discolor the leather, and it wouldn't dye evenly. I met another man who cased leather with, and I am not making this up- Diet Coke. There were many discussions around the back table in the Tandy on how to "properly" case leather. Some of it was akin to "bury the dead cat in a circle and walk around it counter-clockwise a dozen times". Here are the variables as I see them: 1. The leather you are using 2. The water you have available 3. Whether you are molding and tooling, or just tooling 4. The moisture content of your shop environment 5. How quickly or slowly you will work the piece 6. The way you were originally taught Great conversation, folks. Disclaimer- I can't carve a turkey, let alone a piece of leather. All I know is from personal observation and discussions like this. Johanna

Sometimes I get mail that just chokes me up, and I know we are doing a good thing here. This board wouldn't be anything without all the wonderful people who participate. All I do is keep the lights on and the coffee fresh. You folks make it all worth it. Johanna

Thanks for posting that, Art. I'm the webmaster for that guild, and I always feel like I'm the last to know things! I will get the additional info online tonight. Everybody- if you want to scribe or judge at the show, you need to be a member of an IFoLG guild. Several guilds accept members who cannot attend meetings- Pittpounders and Georgia Leathercrafters are two examples. If you belong to more than one guild, specify which one you want to enter under. LW is not an IFoLG guild, though many of our members belong to one or more of them. If you need a list of guilds, check out the latest LC & SJ or click here. Johanna

The board doesn't remember how much you donated before January 2008. Anyone who was blue for any amount at the time of the crash is blue forever because I am not willing to go back through PayPal and a calendar and old emails and recreate all that stuff. BLEAH! Any Contributing Member can PM me and be entered in the drawing. Some of you have been very generous, and it wouldn't be fair to call on you for more money just to win ClayB's prize. I don't like standing here holding a tin cup, and I deeply appreciate Clay's gift and the other offers we have had to generate support for the board. The fact is though that it costs money. I have to contract with a reliable webhost and our "Live Chat" feature also has a monthly fee. We have been kicking around plans to upgrade to integrate video clips in posts, and establish a leather topic Wiki for members as a teaching resource. But, the better software costs money, and because many of you go into the shakes when we go offline, I want to make sure the board is stable. I put a donation button on our main page and any amount you can give is going to help. All money donated to this site goes into expenses. Everyone here is a volunteer. Thank you all for you kind support. Johanna

I'd be willing to paint my bike if I won that seat. Good job, Shirley- Johanna

I had a dog that could not wear a veggie tanned collar with a raw inside (not waxed or finished) or he would lose hair and scratch at his raw skin. I made all his collars lined with Cabretta, laced nice and pretty, because, hey, I could. It's the flesh side that usually irritates, not the grain side. Deerskin sometimes makes me itchy, especially in the heat. I remember wearing a deerskin dress to a Pow Wow in Georgia- and taking a Benadryl on the way home for the resulting hives. My Cabretta tops and skirts have never bothered me. Upholstery leather and most chrome/alum tans don't set me off. Wet a piece of suspicious leather and hold it in the crook of your elbow for 30 seconds. If you react to it, you have identified a problem leather. Johanna

I do. Some leathers will give me the blisters, some just hives, some I have no reaction to. Wash your hands a lot! Never pop or scratch the blisters because then they itch like crazy. Cortaid cream helps. When my hands itch really badly, isopropyl alcohol helps. I am also very allergic to raw pine, so I've wondered if the two are related...i.e. am I sensitive to some leathers because pine is used in the tanning process? I can't predict which veggie tanned leather will bother me- I have had high and low priced episodes. Only one hospital visit though- and that was because I had tiny little holes in my hands from sewing while unpacking a shipment of hides from Argentina. Don't rub your eyes while working, ever. I can't stand gloves. The more I'm around leather the less it bothers me, but the last time I went into a Tandy store I broke out in full body hives within an hour. I know it's because I am seldom around leather any more, and I just had to touch everything. Go figure. Johanna

I like the way you snuck your logo into the design. Please tell me this seat isn't destined to be black....sigh... Johanna

Good find! I sent a message to the site owner offering to exchange links and offer cooperation between our sites. Thanks for posting this, rdb! Johanna

We had to let 4 days worth of posts and new members go to be sure of the integrity of the site's database. Hopefully, leathercraft.cn will join again and repost the pics. Meanwhile, I will search the archives for the attachments. People hack websites for fun, not money, and they can often do it anonymously. It's a shame that criminal charges can't be pursued. Johanna

Our webhost was hacked today by someone who replaced our database tables with malicious files. We have lost everything posted after about 9:30 pm Sunday July 13. If you registered in that time period, you'll have to do it again. If you posted something, please repost. We couldn't take the chance on corrupting the database, so we sacrificed a few days' worth of posts and info. I know many of you went through withdrawal during the 13 hours we showed "IPS driver error", and I'm sorry. It wasn't easy for me either! Kate and I are taking measures to improve security to prevent anything like this happening again, or at least lose a little less. Unfortunately the Internet is full of people and programs that wreak havoc in new and unexpected ways. Thank you for your patience and support- this has been a trying day. Johanna Beaverslayer- put the doggone tinfoil hat on, please?

Mary Combes is the wife of Bill Stockil (Billy 2shews) and she is an amazing artist that works with watercolors. Here is her latest, "Nguni Cattle". Visit her website to see some more of her paintings. Johanna

John- http://www.leatherworker.net/tipstricks.htm scroll halfway down and look at the IFoLG guidelines/rules pages. ~J

Roo- I know exactly what you mean. I was 33 when I became a parent, and remember having my privacy very well. I love it when Wade takes the kids somewhere and I have a few hours to work or play- it's just good to be alone sometimes. I truly love my family, but I appreciate having the house to myself occasionally. When I get overwhelmed, I go to one of the nearby cemeteries and walk around until I get my head together. Most of the time I am the only one there, but I've noticed that people just nod as they pass by, and don't try to engage in any conversation. If I call my sis from my cell phone, she'll ask me which one I'm at and comes if she can. Wade and I have a blended family of my two kids, two of his kids we do "shared parenting" with (don't get me started about that!) and a grown son that lives here in town who never lacks for drama in his life. I used to be a retail manager of stores that were open 24/7 and I sometimes had the responsibility of 100 employees, but I usually read for an hour in a bubblebath every night. On the rare occasions I can lay in the bathtub now, I slip a tableknife in the door so no one can come in and ask me dumb questions like where are my socks? Will you drive me somewhere? What's for supper? Can you give me some money? NO I can't do anything like that- I am in the bathtub, are you paying attention here? I used to fire people that annoyed me and make them go away. The cemeteries are peaceful and no one says dumb things like (and yes, this one I heard yesterday) "Mom, will you drive me around so I can find my bike? I can't remember what friend's house I left it at." and stupid conversations like: Kid: Wah!!! he hit me! Me: why? Kid: I knocked him over by accident and he got killed on his Nintendo Me: why don't you go outside and play? I'm with you, Roo. A real vacation for me would be for all of them to go camping for a week and leave me at home...and I'd miss them like crazy. Motherhood is a paradox. Johanna

Thank you all! It was neat- last night I got a PM from Australia (It was already my b-day there) and then Europe and UK started waking up and posting, then the east coast messages began coming in this morning...I told Wade I received birthday wishes from around the world today, and showed him this thread. My family got me a 4 gig MP3 player (how cool is that!?!) and we had a party at the local park and pool that we do every year for the whole family, but usually seems to fall pretty close to my birthday, so I always joke it's "my party". I am a lucky lady to have such good friends with good wishes for me. Thanks everybody- you are the best. Johanna

Charley- I hear you loud and clear! The "critique my work" forum is for the brutally honest stuff, but not everyone wants that kind of feedback, which is why it is its own forum. You would be surprised at how many PMs (private messages) that do get sent when someone asks for honest help. I get cc'ed on some of them, and people do say their piece if the poster genuinely wants to hear it. ClayB is one of the experts at carefully wording a "how you could have done that differently/better/more professionally" and there are a handful of others who will tell you exactly what they think if they you ask them to, if they think you can take it. Some people respond to criticism by taking their tools and toys and going home, and some use the advice to improve. Sometimes people hesitate to say, "Wow, a cow had to die for that piece of crap you made?" (paraphrased from Al Stohlman) because they are polite. I suggest that when a member wants to hear what others think, and for them to be frank, that they say so in the post, and don't get offended if it isn't what the poster wanted or expected to hear. I agree that a lot of the competition judging is subjective, and often doesn't help the person learn how to not do the same mistakes again. I've seen it. It's also true that there are some guild lists that will moderate you if you type the truth as you know it and the original poster doesn't like the answer. We don't do that here. When the criticism is constructive, we all learn something and improve our skills. Good topic guys- thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. Johanna

I wondered what a rope can/case was, never saw one before and still am not real sure if the rope actually goes inside? I asked Bruce, and of course, he knew. Thought I ought to share with anyone else who didn't know either. Johanna