Drafting patterns for leatherworking

Note: This post isn't really about 16th century methodologies.

I've shared a few of my favorite "hacks" (as the kids say) for making leather items with a bit of improvisation in the tools department. We've used flower pots to build mugs, we've used butter knives for skiving, and my favorite cheap woodworking chisels for cutting.

So let's talk about pattern making.

If you've ever followed my maskmaking tutorial or done any other leatherworking without a pre-printed pattern, you've noticed that there's often a size discrepancy between any paper pattern you've created by wrapping the item in paper and marking seams (as we did with this shoemaking post) and the leather you're going to use.

This can cause some real fit issues.

The problem stems from the difference in thickness between paper and leather, combined with the fact that paper doesn't stretch around a form and leather does. You could use some math to account for the thickness, but the stretch is a bit more difficult to guess at, which can result in some wasted materials.

Here's my Not Even Remotely Period (NERP) approach to leather patterning that saves me a lot of time and leather when I'm winging it with a pattern: craft foam.

In the image below, I am preparing a knife sheath for one of my carving knives. I've wrapped the knife in paper and marked the seam, but to get a better handle on the actual shape of the final piece of leather, I made the pattern in the back on thin white foam which I purchased from a local Michael's craft store.

It's not quite as thick as the final leather, but it's close. More importantly, it stretches a bit in a manner that is very reminiscent of damp leather. And since this is a pattern where the fit is precise and the seams have to just meet with no seam allowance, fit is so very crucial.

It's NERPy, sure, but it works a treat.

- Scott

What I've been up to and other recent projects...

So... I haven't been completely idle this past year; I just haven't been doing anything in any sort of pre-planned and extensively- researched way. Mostly, I've been keeping myself busy when my hands were too idle and my brain too active.

Here are some of the recent projects to roll across my workbench.

Inspired by an article by Chris Schwarz in Popular Woodworking, I built a modified 6-board chest for my wife out of offcuts and scraps of VG fir from the window and door manufacturer where she works. (They were fished out of a dumpster with permission. Always get permission before dumpster-diving.) It was assembled using copper boat nails (for no particular reason) and finish with red milk paint and a coat of varnish. 

She uses it to store her video games and accessories.

Since I wasn't really doing this one for the blog, there weren't many in-progress shots. I did a few oddball things with it, though, mostly for practice, including this boarded bottom which I made using the next item on my list...



Last fall, a Craigslist post netted me this box of dusty and rusty planes. Most of them were Sandusky moulding planes, which made them a real find and worth the effort (in my opinion) to sharpen and lap the irons back to usable condition.

This box...



Begat this shelf of oiled, and ready planes. And I'm only short one iron after all is said and done, which is a bit of a miracle if you've ever bought a box of moulding planes. (I have irons for the two in the back that are sitting empty, they were in progress when I shot the photo.)



I used them to tongue and groove the bottom of that chest.

I have continued to practice at the lathe, turning out piles of oddments like these threadreels, which I based loosely on some of the reels which were found on the shipwreck Mary Rose. They're fun to make and an excellent small project to practice with the tools.

And because not everything I do generates sawdust, I've also been exploring puppetry.

Why puppets? Because I'm part of the Jim Henson generation. Also because when you've had a year like I just finished, you find yourself looking for other mouths to express yourself through, be they monster or monkey or felted frog...

This is the one facet of what I've been working on that has required a significant amount of research, which began the first time I saw Grover on Sesame Street, extending across the decades to this past year when I was sitting at a table where the nearest pile of raw materials were foam and faux fur.

This is what sketching looks like when you're making puppets.

Ever wonder how the puppets from your favorite television shows were built? This isn't the place to really discuss it, but I have documented these pretty thoroughly and might need to set up a static webpage or use them for a guest post on someone else's (more appropriately themed) blog.

Anyway, this is what's under all that fur and felt you see on TV.

The above was a commissioned piece, actually. I'll have to share the videos that his owner ultimately makes with him after he takes delivery.

In the meantime, I'm warming up the workbench (Literally. The shop was 24 degrees Fahrenheit when I was out there yesterday) and getting ready to begin the next project. In the meantime, here;s some puppet video my wife shot while I was testing the build on the big grey fellow. This is Mr Grumpigus, who is having issues.

Peeling and pondering

Sometimes, you have to grab a pile of fruit and a knife and make a pie. But really, you just... just... want to peel something.

More even than wood carving, taking knife to fruit is a supremely meditative act of creative destruction.

Care is needed lest you cut yourself, of course, but even if you mangle the fruit, who cares? It's going into a pie anyway, so make with the blade, kiddo, and let your mind wander.

I've been doing a lot of peeling recently, trying to decide how best to proceed with this project.

2015 has been a tumultuous year. My book was published and I was riding high. Then my mother died suddenly and I was left feeling high and low at the same time.

Knife to peel.
Spiraling.
Lengthening.
Try to get it all in one.
Meditate.
Don't cut yourself.

So here I am at the close of the calendar, trying to decide whether I care much for calendars. It's tempting, oh-so-tempting, to think in these discreet blocks of days, months, years. It tempts you to take up the blade.

Peel away the questionable bits.
Cut around the bruises.
Save the good fruit, dispense with the bad.
It's just a pie, it doesn't have to be pretty.

To think in calendars is seductive. It makes it easier to just pretend you can bin the entire year at will or pick or choose in phases of the moon or turning of the seasons. Hell, this entire project is and always has been dependent on calendars for its framework.

In January, can you really begin again? Boot the old man to the curb and pick up the baby in the tophat?

Time is seductive but false.
You can't time a pie, it's done when it's done.
Density, moisture, relative humidity, too many factors at play.
Keep an eye on it and yank it before it burns.

I am about to pick this project back up again. For those of you who have waited patiently while I run off to be an author and have family tragedies, I thank you for your time. I hope you don't feel I've wasted it.

Going forward, we're going to take a more meditative approach and we're going to ignore the calendar. I was wrong about the artificial frameworks for this. I was wrong to think I could just peel it and pop it in the oven and set a timer and it would be done when it dings.

We're going to carve around the worst bits and bruises and try to use the best of the fruit. And we're going to watch the food and let the pie tell us when it's done and time to move on to another pile, another peeler.

Our knives will be sharp and our pies will sometimes be ugly.

I hope you'll join us.

In the meantime, have a happy Christmas or a happy whatever celebration brings you together with your kith and kin this winter's turn. Draw near to those you love and remember those who are missing. Share food and companionship and warmth and remember that they are the only real light that matters in the winter's darkness.

And volunteer in the kitchen when there's stuff to peel.
It'll be good for you.

- Scott

What I did on my summer vacation, or "How this project got stepped on by a giant robot"

For the past little while, I've been distracted from this project by an overwhelming surge of The Other Things that make up my life. For this I apologize because I've been less than communicative. Sometimes I get so far into my own head that I'm out of cell range. My wife and I went on our first vacation in years and I saw parts of my own state that I've never had the privilege of exploring before.

Sometimes you just have to get in the car and go for a three-day drive.

No leather was worked, no wood was carved, no sheep were sheared. I did clean out my shop before it started raining and we built another oven and baked some bread, but that was revisiting a guild that already had its checkmark.

For all intents and purposes, the Renaissance Artisan was 'out' for most of the summer.

Which isn't the same as saying that I've been idle...

As you probably know that before anything else that I do, I am a writer. I make sense of the world by telling stories about it. Whether it's history or fantasy, it's all words to me. When I'm lucky, I get to share those stories with others. Writing is my vocation and my first love. This means that at any given moment, I have more than one project on the docket and often when a deal is being considered, it is confidential until all the papers are signed.

Which is a long way to go toward saying that this week, I signed a contract with a small UK-based publisher called Crooked Cat Publishing to bring my humorous science fiction novel Howard Carter Saves the World to bookstores. The official announcement was made by my publisher yesterday via social media.

I've been bouncing off the walls ever since.

Howard Carter is a novel that I just sat down and told the first story that occurred to me, taking it wherever my fancy led, no matter how bizarre. Aliens who learned about earth by watching Sesame Street? Done. Secretive government agencies? Mysterious universities? Mad scientists? Got it all. Giant robots? Oh, the giant robots...  I wrote it all in public (rather like I've been doing here) posting chapter-by-woefully-unedited-chapter on a blog, writing live and in front of a studio audience. No laugh tracks allowed!

If you want to read a bit of it, here's a free short story that gives you a general sense of the storytelling and characters from the novel. 

Which is a long way of going about telling you that I'm sorry I dropped this to run off and do that, but I will be back in the workshop in a week or so. I have a half-finished costrel and a shoemaking project in the wings. I've also been making connections to get a proper handle on the life of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen, plus the weavers, spinners, mercers, and tailors that lie at the end of that supply chain. 

In the meantime, I have some up-front work to do on getting Howard Carter ready for print and I'll be ducking in and out as my editor and publisher need me. If you would like to join me on that part of the journey as well as this one, I'm inviting you to come with me on the next step of the journey as we prepare Howard for his debut at Amazon and other online booksellers.

Side note: Would it be cheating to use this as part of a study of the Worshipful Companies of Stationers and Clerks?  Just a thought...

However it goes, my goal in that project and this one is to put out a story that is good enough for you to read and enjoy, one that you love enough to not only read but to recommend to your friends. I've worked in publishing at enough different levels to know one thing for certain: positive word of mouth is how success happens.

There will be much, much more later.

- Scott