Slowly

I don’t know – maybe I’m just impatient!  Seems to have been a lot of time passed since my last blog and not a lot of progress!  Maybe that’s the thing when you’re self employed?

Went away for the weekend and managed a few sales (thank you lovely Forest Argent LARP people!) despite this being my view for the majority of the weeked!  Caught a horrid bug on the way up and spend most of the weekend sleeping in the van!   Gutted that I couldn’t join in, but between the rain and the bug I took the sensible option… for once! 

Took a good week to recover after!

I have had a fair bit of dull work to do – tried to do it with a view, when you can see more than 3 feet in front of your face and it’s been cosy work, editing and branding photos, working on the gallery in the background.  

My aim is to have the stamps, dyes and fonts I have upoloaded, so the customer can easily personalise their leather purchases.  Actually, learning to code anchors for this page was ‘dull work’ but it will come in handy for the gallery too!  When I upload this blog, the work I’ve done on the gallery will be uplioaded too, so (a) I’d better go check it in a minute (b) go check it out!!

I’m also looking to upload photos of some “standard” and traditional leather carving patterns that I can easily price – having done them for a while!  Mushrooms, oak leaves and acorns for belts, bags and book covers!

My feathered friend here thudded into my porch window with a bang last night!  Frightened the life out of me!  Knoked himself silly for  a while, but managed to get himself to a sheltered spot to recover.  

He’d gone when I checked later, and no evidence of a fox/cat fight, natrure is so beautiful!

Completed a small commission / repair recently – lovely tote bag that had plenty of life left in it… but unfortunately the handles disagreed and had all but disintegrated.  

I duplicated the original straps and fitting, but using 2mm veg tanned shoulder leather.  The new handles won’t delaminate and wear like the originals, they’ll break in nicely and should last at least the reamaining life of the bag!

As I didn’t think it through when collecting this repair, I did need to complete it from the back of the van – anvil, rivets, hammer, check!  But I think you’ll agree it turned out well!  So much so that I now have another 2 of these to do!  (Lesson learned, though, these will be fixed in the workshop!)