Johanna

Roboform has a good reputation and a proven history. Are you on Vista or still using XP, Bill? Johanna

Bobocat- thank you for sharing your work. It is quite unlike the styles we see here in the US, and we admire the quality of your art. I also wanted to thank you for referring some of your friends/colleagues to here- tell them not to be shy, just jump in and post. We enjoy learning from you, and would like to see your friends' pics, too. Johanna

Wow, the DonnaKay looks like a sweet blues guitar. Love the deep cutaway. I have a 30 some year old Guild that I love to pieces, but I would love to play that DonnaKay, just once. Your brother's sculptures are pretty cool, too- reminds me of The Dragon Lady's work with all the detail. Everyone here likes to look at fine craftsmanship- thanks for sharing, Tim. Tell him the folks here at LW said to Johanna

BillyP- the next time I go to visit my family in Charleston I'm gonna look you up, get a tour of your shop, give your dogs head scratches and buy you a beer. You just summed up the whole point and purpose of LW. Thank you. Johanna

I lived in the deep south for eleven years, and I don't care how you fix them, grits are gross. Every southerner will tell you their "sweet tea" is the best, too, but plain water tastes better than iced tea. My dad is from PA and my mom is from Ohio, and when I was little I lived in "New Hanpshuh" so maybe I'm just an ignorant Yankee like they said. "Grits" in this part of Ohio is pork headmeat and pinoats. You bake it or fry it and cover it with pepper. Delicious! Johanna

LW encourages people to post their links in their profile and/or signature, and talk about their business and their products as appropriate. People don't use this board to spam, and they discuss whatever they want. We have had a few spammers, and we dealt with them, but they are not from the leatherworking community. See, many of of know or know of each other, so when you read a post here with someone's name on it, it means they aren't afraid to say, "This is what I think." Readers can decide for themselves who has more credibility. By the way, Google lives on this board, and lots of other spiders are here every day. Links in profiles do matter. Johanna

Well, Mike, that was the point. Using LW to get more hits to his site. Efforts at diplomacy and cooperation have failed, this topic is now over. Anyone with something interesting or relevant to say can start a new thread. Johanna

Highways and freeways are the same. They have designated exits, not turning lanes. Those campers in the bed of a truck are called "fifth wheels". Our family has one. If we can afford the gas, it sleeps 6 comfortably and is cheaper than a motel. Oreos are the best cookies ever, unless they get stale. They just now, after 40 some years, developed a package to keep them fresh. When you rip the sticky opening back, every kid within a block can hear it and comes running. Twinkies are overrated. Putting A-1 on a steak is sacreligious is some parts of the US. PBS ran some shows like "Waiting for God" and the one with Hyacinth Boo-kay (not bucket!) and we loved them. Anything with Judy Dench is worth watching, too. Along with the letter "u", Brits do funny things with "s" when a "z" works fine. In the US, a "bathroom" is in a house and is "private", a "restroom" is public, and you can't take a shower there. You can put gas in your tank, or pass gas and have everyone leave the room, but we have no such thing as "petrol". A boot goes on your foot- we put our groceries in the trunk. "Wally World" is a nickname for WalMart and "Mickey Dees" means McDonalds. Johanna

Not as old, but just as impressive is tha Angel Oak near Charleston, SC, It is believed to be about 1500 years old, and has survived earthquakes and hurricanes and mankind, who valued oaks for their wood so much that much of the Lowcountry was deforested in Colonial times. http://www.angeloaktree.org/gallery.htm Johanna

Well said, RunningRoan. LW has no problems with anyone promoting their work, business, interests etc. that's one of the reasons we are here. Like obscenity, we know spam when we see it. No one is playing politcal games with you. I thought I made it clear in my last post that we welcomed your input, and were glad to learn from you. I don't know what else to say except I hope when you've had a chance to think things over, that you reconsider and share some of your knowledge with us. Johanna

Wow...my initials are JAMS, just in case you ever make another one like that. Beautiful job. Johanna

Hey Mark, I don't have a dog in this fight, and it feels like you are trying to pick a fight with me. No one at LW is discouraging you from your ambition. We wish you the best of luck with your catalog and hope leatherworkers sell a bunch of stuff! We remind people all the time why they should fill out their profiles, and put their links in their signatures here on LW, and we encourage people to introduce themselves and tell us what they do. Many of our members are not anonymous- they use their own name or their business name. I've been told that LW has generated a few sales. And that's one of the reasons LW was founded for in the first place....to keep leatherworkers from having to get day jobs. So knock off the negativity, apparently we both have benevolent goals, only you're coming off sounding rather confrontational. I have no idea what was said between you and the other members, but I've got no bones to pick with you. You aren't being censored or told what to do, and you're free to discuss your business on the board. We know trolling and spamming when we see it, and the folks in green are good at making the distinction. Otherwise you wouldn't be here, right? I repeat GOOD LUCK with your project. You obviously understand SEO. This site gets about 2000 unique vistitors a day, and less than 5% of those come from search engines. Yet every day new members say they found us with Google. Obviously I have a lot to learn, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would benefit from a tutorial written by you on how to increase website rankings and get search engines to find your site. Many of us are more adept at pounding cows than keyboards, so if you can teach us how to be better business people on the Internet, we would really appreciate it. When I had a shop there was no Internet, and we were limited to a certain geographical area for sales. No leatherworker needs to be limited like that- a website can be better than a yellow page ad or a billboard. Teach us how to build user friendly sites and market them well. Your friend in leather, Johanna

Hey Kevin! Good talking to you on the phone the other day! Folks, Kevin is putting together the "Extreme Leather Workshop" (look on the calendar for more details) in Beautiful Asheville NC this Spring. This is an event for the family, not just the leatherworker. If you can make this trip and these classes, you will not be wasting your time. Support this event and let those top-notch instructors know you want more more more in the Eastern US. Make sure you sign up for the free newsletter on the hidestoart site, too! Johanna

I spoke with him on the phone about a week ago. He is trying to set up shop in a small apartment, and get things in order. Send him a PM from here so he's sure to get it when he goes online. Johanna

Dear Bill Gates, We need Java to use Live Chat, so sorry, we ain't dumping it . Hey, Dan's advice is on the money. Don't forget the reboot hementioned. I don't know why, but it's necessary for all this to work right. Same goes when you need to update Adobe Flash to watch You Tube videos. Uninstall the old, reboot, reinstall the new. I don't know why updates aren't cumulative, but they aren't. Johanna (part time computer geek)

I don't think it's a good idea to make a baby rattle out of leather that is actually going to be used by a baby and put in her mouth. A special one that mom can put away with her baby things to give to child when she is older (in other words, a work of art, not a teething toy) is a better idea. You have no idea what the leather you use is tanned with, or what chemicals it has in it. I don't let my dogs chew on scraps in the shop because they get sick from it, and I sure wouldn't let my baby gnaw on a piece on veggie tanned. Nice thought, but not a safe one for baby. Johanna

Jon always said you have quoted the right price when the customer looks pained, but reaches for his wallet. That said, you have to figure your time into your work. You are limited to what you can produce with your own two hands. If your time isn't worth enough to ask enough for fair pricing, you're going to be out of business and getting a day job. Anyone who is trying to make a living from leather has got to figure out their bills, and charge enough per hour to cover them. The alternative is "You want fries with that?" and a uniform. (shudder) Johanna

Marlon got me the pics (he is far more computer savvy than he lets on!) and I will get them up and in a formal gallery ASAP. Thanks for everything, Marlon- you're a star. Johanna

Okay, let's clear the air first. No one is stepping on my toes. MS has a good idea, and he may have the technical skills and the time to pull it off successfully. If so, great- more of you leatherworkers get work, become rich and famous and invite me to spend a few days at your vacation place (vacation place defines to anything OUTSIDE of Ohio). So far so good. What you folks don't see is that, behind the scenes here at LW, you have a team of people dedicated to making your LW experience worth your time, and we are always working on project or two ahead. We're a tight community, and resources are limited (how many rich and famous leatherworkers do you know?) so LW gladly partners with other groups, guilds and associations that are trying to achieve the same goals. When something comes along that LW can support, it helps the staff to have a heads up before it's discussed and decided on the open forum. This particular situation possibly duplicates the efforts of a similar project that LW has already committed to helping to establish, promote and provide the hosting. When I first read about it, my reaction was, "well, let's not reinvent the wheel, let's get MS involved in making the original idea a success using his expertise." Before I had a chance to run this past the staff, MS arranged the catalog, and that's great, but LW isn't going to be able to be involved in this one, except to link to it and talk it up where appropriate, of course. We wish him every success with it. And I have to throw this in for all those of you who have not filled in your profiles (click "My Controls" at the top of the page.) People are shopping here. They search the board, read the posts, look at the pics and check the profiles. If someone likes your work, let them buy it easily. There is a place for all your contact info and websites and anything else you want to tell your customers, the googling public. Fill the sucker out! Keep me up to date with how this is going, MS. I hope it takes off- a leather Etsy. How cool is that? Johanna

I just looked and I have about 1500 bookmarks. I have folders. Accounts, Forums, Reference, Newspapers, Music, Computer stuff, Leather is divided into artists, suppliers and other. I have one folder called "Check" which is stuff I want to look at but didn't have the time at the minute. I don't save things in two places often, so I usually get a prompt if I'm trying to save something twice. When I want to save a bookmark, I edit the title to something I will recognize- "Welcome to Joe's Leather House est. 1910" will become "Joe's Leather House" or whatever I need to do to make it quickly identifiable. I alphabetize my favorites in my folders, which makes it easier to find what I'm looking for because I probably already know a bit of the name. I put my favorites folder on my flash drive for when I'm out with my laptop. I also found a nifty piece of software called AM- deadlink that works with Vista that keeps the favicons and sort through the bookmarks for outdated ones. Johanna

Church services were conducted here in High German but stopped around WWI. The beautiful building has German inscriptions all over. At our church it says "Blessed are those who listen and heed God's word" in German on the dome. I wonder how many people have noticed this when the sermon is taking a long time? School here was a mixture of German and English until WWII when German was stricken from the curriculum. It wasn't even restored as an "optional" language until the late 60s. Most of the early paperwork and gravestones from here are in High German, but the people used Low German and the small towns took on their own dialects. In the 70s, a group of people from our village went to the town of Ladbergen (not much more than an exit on the autobahn now, from what I can tell) and visited with relatives. The relatives laughed at the "German" spoken by our US villagers- calling it "quaint". The dialect froze in time around the 1840s here in America, so the German relatives understood the Americans, but noticed how old-fashioned it seemed. Our school, K-12 in one building, built in 1922, does not offer Spanish or French classes. My kids started German lessons in the first grade. People my mother's age remember parents and grandparents using German when they didn't want the kids to know what was being said. During and after WWII, kids were given instruction in English only, from school and church. If anyone knows anyone who is capable of this kind of translation work (the letters) please put them in touch with me. I have most of it scanned and cleaned up, and of course we are very curious what Carl and "Charlie" had to say. Johanna

My mom and I do a lot for the local historic associations, and we are always interested in our family history. We know very little about this ancestor other than he came over the ocean about the time this area of Ohio was settled. Family anecdotes relate that he was a shoemaker, as well as an accomplished singer. My mom sent me some pics- haven't seen the actual book yet. Edythe is our cousin. There are many letters from him and his son to other family members, some here in the US and some in Germany. Some are in High German, some in Low German, and a few in English, but the fancy german script is hard to read, and we haven't found anyone who can translate the ones from his son yet. His son left Ohio and went west, and the English letters tell a fascinating story, but the German letters are a mystery. Meanwhile, I'm going over to Edythe's and taking a look at the book to see if there is anything that can be done to preserve what's left of the leather. Kinda ironic- my gg grandfather was a shoemaker, huh? Johanna

Please don't double post.

I have met some deranged ignorant people in my leatherworking years, and you can imagine the hate mail admin gets now and then when some PETA member gets all riled up. I have had fake blood smeared on my shop windows- Jim- it wasn't the real thing, they just do it for attention. There is a section here called "leather is a byproduct of the meat industry" and that is true for 95% of the leathers we use or more. Anything else is covered by what UK Ray had to say. I lived in PA where they refused to let hunters take more deer, and they trampled the suburbs, starved and were hit by cars. It was pretty stupid, considering there were food banks lined up for the meat. PETA people are not reasonable. If you can be polite, just say, "That's an interesting assumption." and walk away. if you can't be polite, call 911 because they will get violent to "prove a point". A fur dealer had his store burned down. PETA people think they mean well, but they are often badly misinformed, and it's like they have been brainwashed. Most of them can't tell leather from plastic or vinyl or pleather either, and most of them are not vegans. So they have sweaty feet so no cows are killed for their skins while they eat a hamburger. Makes sense, huh? Johanna

AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core processor 6000+ 3 GHz w/ 3 gigs of memory running Vista Ultimate Avertec laptop AMD Athlon 3000+ XP Pro Olympus Stylus camera, multiple MP3 & 4 players, cell phone, etc 2005 Dodge Durango with a Hemi