Schlaumeier

I started sewing my sheep skin sleeping bag by hand and then moved on to sewing on the machine (Singer 70R8). Now the upper material folds while the lower material remains smooth. I guess the reason for that is, that the upper material gets drawn in faster than the lower material. I wonder if this is due to too much/not enough pressure or the material being too heavy. I would like to experiment with the pressure but don't know how. The singer manual I found online says, the pressure adjustment is on the back of the machine at the centre of the long arm. But there is nothing there that fits the description. Any ideas?

Sheilajeanne: Wow, that is strong. So I guess, I will just need to practice a bit with the foot padel and the hand wheel. Thanks again everyone. I think I will go to work now and come back once there is a result. :-)

When I use the foot pedal, the sewing direction keeps changing. I guess, it just takes some practise? Or is there a trick for controling the sewing direction?

It works! Thanks a lot to you all! Jimi, it's an 29K8 for sure.

I think, the weaving technique itself can not be altered a lot. The main difference lies in the patterns. The Birka pieces I made have the origianal dimensions and patterns. For the merowingian piece I took my inspiration from a fragment of leather found in a grave of an alamanic woman. I was present when it was excavated but after the top of it had been unearthed, it was covered up again in order to conserve it, cut out with a block of earth and sent to the conservators. So I don't know what it exactly was. Surely it was not like the bag I made. However, the bit I saw, 10 to 20 square centimeteres (that's about four square inch?) was just woven leather, the whole area. And it was quite a bit finer than my work. I don't know any other merowingian finds decorated in this way, even though I have looked at many. So it might not be too typical of the time. The bronze fixtures were made according to archaeological finds, yes. In this form they are mainly found in early medieval eastern europe. Here are two shops, which sell stuff like that: http://www.gunnar.com.pl/de https://www.reenactors-shop.de/en/dress-accessories/belt-mounts-belt-rings/mounts-viking-and-rus/ Sheilajeanne: There are also some shoes from Iona. I think this is the publication of it: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20568189?seq=1

Vindonissa pouch 3rd/4th century roman from modern day switzerland. Possibly made for wax tablets for writing Also roman. Can't remember where it was found and how it dates. Late roman I think. Tarsoly style pouches, as they were found in a tenth century (viking age) context in Sweden. The actual origin is eastern europe though. Merowingian frankish/alamanic forage bag. Inspired by find from modern day Germany There is a single early medieval piece of leather from a ditch of the monestary on Iona, Scotland, to which I added a few more pieces in order to make this crude pouch, which holds my Feuerzeug (german for lighter but litteraly meaning fire stuff) Knife sheat inspired by a viking age find from Coppergate Road, York, United Kingdom Viking age pouch from Eide, Norway. The smaller one has the size of the original Two Birka pouches, 10ths century (viking age), Sweden. The originals head gilded leather straps instead of the dark brown leather straps I used.

I found an old leather sewing machine in my grandpas basement. I think, he got it from a friend of his, whos father was a shoe maker. The make is Singer. There is a brass plaque with the digits 29k8 stamped into it. I assume, this is the model? I watched some instructional videos on youtube, but couldn't find anything for a 29k8. The biggest difference between the most helpful video I could find and my own machine, are the bobbins. The ones in the video had an eye on the flat side, through which the thread is pulled in the end. My bobbins lack this eye. First the machine kind of worked, until I changed the lower thread. Now I can't even get the lower thread up. I'm doing it, like you would with a textile sewing machine. I think it was the same in the instrucitonal video. Also, the tension on the upper thread seems to be very high. In your experience, is it possible to make a machine work, which hasn't been used for years, without taking it apart, cleaning it thouroughly and oiling it? This is the video:

Guude. Hehe, that's how you pull a re-enactors leg. In the case of the sleeping bag I would actually make an exception. I really don't mind it being sewn by machine.

Yes, there are. The online telephone book lists 16 Conrads for Kassel, 1 for Marburg, 23 for Frankfurt am Main and 1 for Darmstadt. Not everyone is listed there though, so there are probably more. And I only checked for those four places. Also, I think Konrad with a K is more common I think. And 400 years ago there was no universal way of writing names I guess. Fascinating how americans know their family history 400 years back. I wish this was the case with our family. I know I have a grand-grand-grand-mother from England and a grand-grand-father from the Rhineland area in Germany. That's it.

Thanks Button Lady. Your family history sounds interesting. Do you know when abouts they emigrated to the U.S.? About the vindonissa pouch: That's what I've read too. I'm not sure though, if there is any hard evidence for this or if it is just an educated guess, based on it's size. I didn't do a lot of background reading on this one.

Hello everyone, my name is Marco. I'm a hessian from Germany. I'm hoping to find some help here with an old leather sewing machine I found in my grandparents basement. I am a re-enactor (early medieval) and have been doing leather work for many years now, usually reconstructions of archaeological finds or things that were inspired by such finds. So far I have done everything by hand. But now I'm making a sleeping bag from sheep skins AND found that sewing machine and decided, I wouldn't continue sewing this one by hand. However, I couldn't manage to make the machine work, even though I have worked with textile sewing machines before and they are somewhat similar. P.S. The headless rider in sleepy hollow was a dreadful depiction of a hessian. Usually we are a bunch of merry people, with a funny dialect, getting drunk on cider. Also, nowadays we rarely hire out as mercenaries for other european monarchies. ;-) This is an example of one of my works. It's the so called vindonissa pouch from Switzerland. It's roman, not for my own re-enactment impression. I just liked it and wanted to do it. The original find lacked the sides, so I figured they might have been made from linen, which rots faster than leather. The side panels are not visible in the picture.