New Projects!
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:11 am
Hey folks! So I've been working on a ton of new stuff lately. A lot of it has been for my Etsy shop, but some has been for my own purposes, and mostly medieval/ranger related. The newest project I finished was a belt, and the one before that was a new archery bracer. And a few months ago I also finished my first hand-sewn pouch. I've put up some pics of all these for everyone to take a look. Here's the album on photobucket:
http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e173/ ... 20Costume/
Like I said, the belt is the newest item I completed. That one was done yesterday, start to finish. The buckle is from Raymond's Quiet press, and is a copy of a buckle recently found in Scotland, dated to the 12th Century. The belt is approximately 1" wide, and there are 10 decorative mounts along its length. For these I just used bezel conchos from Tandy Leather, and fastened them on with brass rivets. I was surprised at how much I liked the silver/gold contrast, as well as how period it looks. Although this piece might be a bit ornate for a ranger, I fancy it would fit right in on your average turn-of-the-13th -Century man, and I may still use it for rangering purposes. The belt mounts might even pass for Dunedain stars, and I specifically included the oak-leaf stamping between the mounts because of my intent to use it with a ranger/woodsman type impression.
The bracer was a project I deliberated over for quite a while. I couldn't decide precisely what style I wanted, so I eventually decided to combine several. What I ended up with wasn't quite what I wanted, but overall it works nicely. I sewed the two layers together by hand, with a sewing awl, and they provide lots of excellent protection against string-slap. Soon I intend to build an under-bracer out of a much softer, thinner leather, and build a half-glove into it. I also want to make a matching bracer for the other arm, but possibly with a hand-guard attached.
Finally, the pouch, which is the oldest of these items. It was based in a general sort of way on historical pouches, but with no specific, documentable example. The closure was inspired by Viking birka belt bouches, and I liked it because it secures the flap very well without using any buckle or other metal closure. This was my first foray into stitching with a sewing awl, and overall I was very pleased with the results. As you can see in the pictures, all seams and straps were sewn to avoid the use of modern-looking rivets. Of course, I then broke down and used rivets for my other projects, but I thought they were fitting for those particular items. This one I wanted to be metal-free. It's actually made of three different weights of leather - heavy for the straps, medium for the body, and lightweight for the gusset (which I now wish I had made a little wider, but ya' live ya' learn).
All of these items were dyed using a combination of Fiebing's medium-brown alcohol based leather dye and Eco-Flo antique leather gel, also in Medium brown (and in the case of some parts of the bracer, antique black). I LOVE the Eco-Flo antique gel because of the amazing depth and richness of color and texture it produces. Before constructing and dyeing the pieces I worked them and distressed them in my hands to give them a wrinkled, lived-in quality. Then when I applied the gel, it really got into all the cracks beautifully, and gave this lovely, variegated dimension to all the pieces, making them look as though they'd been in use for a while already. I love that stuff, and I've worked with it for a while on many projects. If you haven't tried it yet I highly recommend it.
Anyway, that's basically all! Just wanted to show off a bit! Now I've just got to come up with an excuse to garb-up and take some new pics of me in all my new gear!
http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e173/ ... 20Costume/
Like I said, the belt is the newest item I completed. That one was done yesterday, start to finish. The buckle is from Raymond's Quiet press, and is a copy of a buckle recently found in Scotland, dated to the 12th Century. The belt is approximately 1" wide, and there are 10 decorative mounts along its length. For these I just used bezel conchos from Tandy Leather, and fastened them on with brass rivets. I was surprised at how much I liked the silver/gold contrast, as well as how period it looks. Although this piece might be a bit ornate for a ranger, I fancy it would fit right in on your average turn-of-the-13th -Century man, and I may still use it for rangering purposes. The belt mounts might even pass for Dunedain stars, and I specifically included the oak-leaf stamping between the mounts because of my intent to use it with a ranger/woodsman type impression.
The bracer was a project I deliberated over for quite a while. I couldn't decide precisely what style I wanted, so I eventually decided to combine several. What I ended up with wasn't quite what I wanted, but overall it works nicely. I sewed the two layers together by hand, with a sewing awl, and they provide lots of excellent protection against string-slap. Soon I intend to build an under-bracer out of a much softer, thinner leather, and build a half-glove into it. I also want to make a matching bracer for the other arm, but possibly with a hand-guard attached.
Finally, the pouch, which is the oldest of these items. It was based in a general sort of way on historical pouches, but with no specific, documentable example. The closure was inspired by Viking birka belt bouches, and I liked it because it secures the flap very well without using any buckle or other metal closure. This was my first foray into stitching with a sewing awl, and overall I was very pleased with the results. As you can see in the pictures, all seams and straps were sewn to avoid the use of modern-looking rivets. Of course, I then broke down and used rivets for my other projects, but I thought they were fitting for those particular items. This one I wanted to be metal-free. It's actually made of three different weights of leather - heavy for the straps, medium for the body, and lightweight for the gusset (which I now wish I had made a little wider, but ya' live ya' learn).
All of these items were dyed using a combination of Fiebing's medium-brown alcohol based leather dye and Eco-Flo antique leather gel, also in Medium brown (and in the case of some parts of the bracer, antique black). I LOVE the Eco-Flo antique gel because of the amazing depth and richness of color and texture it produces. Before constructing and dyeing the pieces I worked them and distressed them in my hands to give them a wrinkled, lived-in quality. Then when I applied the gel, it really got into all the cracks beautifully, and gave this lovely, variegated dimension to all the pieces, making them look as though they'd been in use for a while already. I love that stuff, and I've worked with it for a while on many projects. If you haven't tried it yet I highly recommend it.
Anyway, that's basically all! Just wanted to show off a bit! Now I've just got to come up with an excuse to garb-up and take some new pics of me in all my new gear!
!)
