Medieval satchels

[Prusty]

A small collection of 12th-15th century satchels I made recently. I have a hard time letting stuff be intentionally a bit rough, but for historical pieces you want a little roughness to the cutting and stitching.

 

2mm veg-tan leather, each one was dyed then treated with grease, before being softened on a blunt axe acting as a staking knife. I experimented with two treatments, a tallow/lanolin/beeswax/oil mix which is very waterproof but gummy, and a tallow/oil mix which is less waterproof and softening but easier to work in. Turning the corners was a right pain!

Any questions or feedback, especially information of greases, would be greatly appreciated. 

[Retswerb]

These look great! Thanks for sharing.

[DV8DUG]

Those are nice work. Just because its from an older time doesn't mean it has to look old my friend.

[chuck123wapati]

On 9/15/2020 at 2:15 AM, DV8DUG said:

Those are nice work. Just because its from an older time doesn't mean it has to look old my friend.

Very true people bought their stuff in new condition back then also and as it was very much more expensive and hard to come by than today they took extremely good care of their possessions. We forget this because we are a throwaway culture.

[1961Mike]

Hi, I'm more of the cowboy leather work sort, but I do have a question.  The satchels don't have a buckle which is understandable being a 500 year old design, but did Renaissance ladies actually stick those itty bitty leather shoe laces back through those itty bitty holes when they went from store to store?

Later