Schlaumeier Report post Posted January 31, 2021 (edited) 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. Edited January 31, 2021 by Schlaumeier Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ButtonLady Report post Posted January 31, 2021 Welcome, Marco! Very nice work. ☺☺☺ I looked up "vindonissa pouch" —it's for storing wax tablets? My ancestors were from Hesse. Supposedly, one of them was a witch (!) and this explains a lot about me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Schlaumeier Report post Posted February 5, 2021 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. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ButtonLady Report post Posted February 6, 2021 It really is a lovely piece. We emigrated first to Canada (early 1600s), then to US around 1914. Well... not me specifically. Are there any Conrads left in Hesse? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Schlaumeier Report post Posted February 11, 2021 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. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HondoMan Report post Posted February 11, 2021 Servus Marco und herzlich Willkommen, I hope that if you are wanting to make 'authentic' items for the Mittelaltermärkte and fests, that you are not using that sewing machine from the cellar. Just a week bit of humour. Welcome to the website. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Schlaumeier Report post Posted February 13, 2021 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. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
