DJole

How about this? http://tombanwell.blogspot.com/2011/11/naming-contest-for-plague-doctor-mask.html

Off topic--I see you are in Northern Wales...I spent a summer in Wales learning Welsh down in Lampeter, and I took a weekend to visit the Snowdon area (Caernarvon, Snowdon itself, Bangor, and Llanfair P. G.) Where are you located in Wales?

Cajun, thanks for your interest. You should know first that it's not a charity--none of the nativity pieces are actually sold; they are merely displayed. So perhaps you may want to reconsider your offer, since the only person who would benefit from it would be me.

Here is my modified graphic: You can see that I made some modifications on Joseph and Jesus, and I added the star. Here is the work in progress, with some coloring on: colors used: Angelus Light Blue Angelus Purple Fiebing USMC black Cova Acrylic Gold Acrylic White Tandy Mahogany (probably not Fiebing--I've had this bottle since the 1980s). Fiebing White (!)--yes, that's Fiebing's infamous white dye, making a rare appearance. I had to shake it up well, and apply 4 or 5 coats, but that makes a nice grey donkey. I'm going to leave the faces leather colored--that's a nice brown tan skin that should do just fine. I'm also thinking of doing a black antique stain in the interior of the stable. I'll do all the other colors first, then coat the colors with a resist (Tan Koat perhaps) before I apply the black antique dye to get a nice charcoal grey. I will do the pupils of the eyes with a fine-tip Sharpie permanent pen

Cajun: Here is the online source for the woodcut. You can see that I modified it in spots. <http://www.godecooke...al/bibl015.jpg>

Very nice on the face! I'm a little leery of tackling realistic portraits, myself, so I salute your bravery! There is one thing that you might want to take a look at--the beveling between the arm and chest. It seems too abrupt to me; I think it would be better to widen out that line, to add shape to the chest.

Here's my new project in progress--a Nativity panel. (Every year at Christmas time, my local church organizes a Festival of the Nativity in which hundreds of Nativities fill the church and the community is invited to take part and view/contribute. I've been meaning to contribute something like this for a couple of years now, and finally I got past the thinking stage!) I've based this on a medieval woodcut, which seems to translate surprisingly well into leather. The roughness and sharpness of the lines works well. I've never done anything like these cloth folds, so I had to figure out how to do them with my bevelers and my modeling spoon. I also have done some embossing on the rear side of the leather to raise certain parts. I'm not quite done with the modeling stage--there are some places where I need to clean up some edges, even out the background, and such. Then it's on to the dyeing. I dragged out my dyes today to consider colors. Mary's dress will be blue, but the Fiebing Light Blue is *much* too dark. I did a bit of mixing (Fiebing Lt. Blue and Fiebing White) to get a lighter blue, but that's going to be a LOT of blue and a LOT of mixing. I'm considering Angelus' light blue. Should I go ahead and buy some of that for my test pallete? Joseph's robe is still undecided yet--gray? brown? green? Apparently there is no set iconographic color for his robe, so I'm on my own here! I'm wondering about skin tones--these folks clearly need to be olive skinned, with dark hair. Is there a good color already made, or do I have to custom mix my own? This will be framed, eventually--what do I need to watch out for to protect/preserve the leather and frame from each other?

My father passed away at 1:30 this morning. He suffered a heart attack (not his first) 3 weeks ago, but he was unable to recover from it. My father retired from the US Forest Service about 15 years ago, and in his retirement he built and rebuilt boots for Drew's Western Wear in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The last thing he and I talked about, before his heart attack (which happened at his work down in the boot shop) was boots. We talked about boots quite a bit--I realize, now, that it was because here was something he could really share with his college-educated son. He knew I worked with leather, and he worked with leather, so he wanted to share that with me. My father and I weren't distant, but I think that this was a visceral connection that he enjoyed. There was a pair of 10" Hathorn packers that came into his possession--they were brand new, but the UPS deliverer had placed them on the porch of the person who purchased them, and dogs had smelled the rawhide and chewed into it. UPS paid for a new pair of boots, and the client sent these on to Drews, where they reached the hands of my father, who realized that they were my size, and rebuilt them for me, even sewing on a welt where in the original construction there was none. So, in his memory, I wrote this poem, which you folks as leather workers might appreciate. You may rest assured that I will wear those boots and remember him with love. --- Boots: 10 inch packers The last thing we talked about Father to son, before he died Was boots. If a man works with his hands And his feet Balanced on fir roots, sweating on the fire line, Raising sons out of the forests he needs tough skin good boots to protect the tenderness of the sole of the foot of the soul. The vamp–a dull color of blood and dust together, the blood of his veins the dust of the wild places he loved Buffed and waterproofed to keep my feet warm and dry, I am wrapped tightly by the work of his hands embraced by his arms. The 10 inch upper–black as Cascade duff in the snow-melt, high to support the ankle and keep me upright as I walked, Upright as he walked and I followed, 10 inches high he walked firm and strong, and I followed him through the trees. The laces–black leather, earth tones and primitive –he knew that woven laces wear out too quickly in the wilderness when you need them the most so he wove thick, square laces as long as my life of my boots. The heel counter–rawhide, to protect against spurs I will never wear, rawhide white and strong as tough sagebrush country sprinkled carelessly over basalt rimrock the color of semi-arid soils. The color of his face, worn as the seasons changed around him faster than he could walk. I was his spring, and his summer, and I knew he would be my winter, death under snow, waiting silently for rebirth. The soul is eternal– the sole is mini-Vibram, not caulks for traction on the logs not cowboy for ease in the stirrup not deep cleats for muddy trails; chosen by him not for the dirt the soils the rock where he worked but for my easier, paved trails. He could re-sole them for me, he said. And he has re-souled I am his soul living in me. These boots, his loving hands reach out practical, strong and rugged built to take me into wild places and even the wild places he never knew the untracked wildernesses of college corridors library carpets worlds beyond his hillsides. These are not new boots– New, they would have been too dear. Discarded, they became dear to him. He re-crafted them, re-built them turning waste into care building leather into love, using tools and hands and materials a love for craftsmanship and raw, animal material life and death crafted into usefulness One thing, at least, that we shared Deftly stitching a welt where none existed before Because in his art, his craft, he knew quality boots can be re-built. He knew– His own boots had passed through the years, forward through my childhood, tattered and worn, patched and replaced–all but the uppers were new, but they were the same boots. The supple texture of boot leather, the smell of hides, thread and glue stitched us together in his heart. My soles can be rebuilt My soul stitched together with his, father and son His soul goes onward, tattered and patched to be rebuilt, vamp, upper, sole and counter Into beauty and usefulness by the Maker.

Thanks unto thy history wonkiness, Tasha--that's the kind of I'm looking for: documentation and a workable pattern both.

I picked up some nice green upholstery leather from the Odd-Lots bin at Tandy this week. I think I might like to make a leather jerkin out it (mid to late medieval period). Is there a pattern somewhere, or do I have to re-invent the wheel?

I used a different approach on my cell phone case. My cell phone is a "soap bar" type, that doesn't flip open. The holder is an oval cylinder, with the top cover held on by a snap. The cover also has an interior loop through which I have fastened the hand strap of my phone, so they are connected. That means I don't lose the top, because it's attached to the phone, and the phone is also harder to misplace! The basket weave was done with a knife and a beveler--no stamping. You can see the gold snap clip, which is clipped onto a belt loop riveted to the case. Maybe you'll see something in this that you'll find useful.

I want to see the "back" of the cylinder, where you stitched it together. Do you have pix of that?

The dye job is attractive--the two tones are striking. I like your ship, too--it matches the style of pirate-era art, and reminds me of scrimshaw work. I suspect that the owner will have a hard time keeping this garter hidden...

Wow, that's ambitious for a first piece! I can see you are getting used to the tools and what they do, and how to replicate anatomy. I'm not a figure carver--never done it, and likely never will--but good on you for giving it a try!

That's the same way I got my granite slab--I saw the custom stonework store on a nearby street and walked away with a scrap piece of granite countertop. It's ragged on one edge, and I suppose I should smooth it down one of these days, but it didn't cost me a cent.

Oh, very nice! The bag is a good solid piece; the line decorations (scratched?) are perfect for period decorations; the piping is a lovely flourish that makes this piece sing. And hand stitched, too. Bravo! I'd love to see the back. Got any photos?

I needed a new wallet, so I decided to build my own, from my own design. I like tri-folds, and I knew what kinds of pockets I wanted and a way to install the ID card holder that wouldn't tear the plastic holder. So I got out my tooling leather, and some pigskin lining, and came up with this design. Here's the tooling bit on the top. The design is a copy of an enameled metal piece on the Sutton Hoo purse. (geek humor: this is a wallet, so it makes sense to have this purse image, right? right?) I have a soft spot in my heart for oxblood dye, so I finally got a chance to use some here. And I've been wanting to use my lovely red linen thread, too. Here's the interior: The coin pocket is riveted at the high stress points (which is where my old wallet finally died). The side pocket which holds my debit card is open on BOTH sides, so I can slip it out via the angle side or the other. The ID card folder is slipped through a leather loop sewn on to the interior. It was a nice little project, that taught me some things about measuring and folding. You can see that I didn't get it quite right, and that there is one set of erroneous holes across one of the pocket edges, but I'm keeping them as a reminder for next time!

Here's the side of what I call the Bird Box. It's my first experiment in matte backgrounding, dyed black with a lot of care and a SHARP paintbrush. The birds are an original design, in a vaguely Celtoid sensibility. The spirals showed me that a smaller beveler would be useful--I seem to want to work in miniature rather than make big pieces. Here's the top of the box: It's an Anglo-Saxon bird. I like the contrast of the yellowish British Tan background with this antiqued Natural dye. The relief on this carving just begs me to run my finger over it.

Oh, that's lovely! It's almost too nice to sit on!

Yeah, I like that second pattern better. The horse is too pictorial--it's not abstract enough, like the original Celtic design work is. (And for what it's worth, the second pattern isn't really Celtic--I would categorize it as more Norse than Celtic, based on a few stylistic cues. Not all knotwork is Celtic, after all.)

I don't think what you are looking at is edge creasing. It appears to me that you are asking about stitching grooves (the channel in which the stitches rest, below the surface of the leather). There are tools that do this--look for stitching groovers at tool suppliers online and in real life.