Now the Working Bit

Continuing where we left off yesterday, I finally got back to working on things over the weekend.

I knew I'd be spacy on Monday, so Saturday and Sunday I mostly worked on the replacement beer gut bag to go to New Zealand. It seemed to go slow, in part because although they go together, in some general ways, like the hard belt pouches, there's enough difference that I have to stop and think about where things should go, how big they should be, etc.

While I was working on the new beer gut, I also did a bit of work on the old one that I had ripped apart and am refurbishing. At one point I was using the older one as a template for the newer one, as the older one had shrunk enough that it would nest inside the newer one.

Although I was, indeed, spacy on Monday (Xanax makes dental work much less stressful), I was together enough to do lacing and hand-sewing, so between appointments and other running about I confined myself to working on said lacing/sewing. By Monday evening I had the binding for the opening and the dee holders sewn onto the new beer gut, and was starting to sew the binding onto the opening on the old one. Unti I messed up and had to pull it back off, grumble.

Last night I did a 4-strand round braid section to hold the antler peg onto the new beer gut, and put a turk's head knot around the top of the peg. Then I found out that we don't have any CA (super glue) with a decent applicator. I debated starting to lace the beer gut up before gluing the knot in place, but decided that would be tempting fate, so I put it in a (hopefully) safe place, and will stop for a tube of CA tonight.

Hopefully tonight and tomorrow I can get the new beer gut laced up, make the shoulder strap and put it on Friday, and then Saturday morning I can pack it up, take it to the Post Office and do the international shipping/customs forms dance. I really want to get it done and sent of Saturday morning. Maybe tomorrow night I'll put Ron to work on making the shoulder strap while I lace.

Taking a break from the beer guts, I cut a disc and a ring out of lightweight calf to do a very simple mirror. Unfortunately, they were too small, and we also decided the back piece needs to be thicker, in order to help protect the mirror. But I'd cut the pieces out of almost-scrap, and gotten used to the circle-cutter in the process, so it wasn't a great loss.

Also cut out a couple-few hard pouch backs. Such excitement.

I wanted to cut out a couple quivers, but (1) shopping and the beer guts took more time than expected, and (2) One of the quivers was going to be out of the tan bison that transmogrified into dark brown in transit. So no go.

A week or three ago I got a new grownup picture book, "Artistic Leather of the Arts & Crafts Era", which I'll do more of a review on later. It's given me a couple new ideas. One was the mirrors, the other is a music/document/scroll case or roll.

Googling for pictures of other old music rolls, I found a new, to me, neat way to hold a case closed, involving a more or less ornate metal bar. In a happy coincidence, Modelmaker stopped by last night. Collaboration may happen.

This morning I had the beginnings of an idea for a variation on a hanging pocket using hard pouch fronts. Still not quite clear on the details, must consider some more and discuss with Ron.