Oh, man, I've been in the process of designing a walking staff and yours is very near what i'm looking for--not so ornate that it's distracting or diminishes functionality, but decidedly more than a mere stick. Gorgeous. I might well be consulting these pictures for some design elements. Is that a l...

The dressing is a commercial mixture, by the same manufacturer as my raincoat--according to them, it's composed of mineral oil, lanolin, vitamin E oil, and various unspecified waxes--chiefly paraffin, if I had to guess. Not exactly period, but it's what I had to hand. I think I'd use beeswax and lan...

So I just did some tests on various swatches of cloth I got. I tested a couple of pieces of silk--some 4oz raw 'noil' and some 3oz woven 'broadcloth'. I also tested some 3oz linen and some 10oz duck canvas. I treated them with a wax/oil dressing I've used for my raincoats for some time. If anyone's ...

I recently stumbled across a series of books by a favorite author--Lois McMaster Bujold. Her Vorkosigan Saga is an excellent piece of SciFi, with some of the best characterization I've encountered in that genre. The series in question, The Sharing Knife and its first two novels of the same name, are...

Cloudberries are also great, they need to be made into jam to preserve as good. They are great to almost everything, we often have it to swedish potato dumplings (potatoes and barley dumplings filled with bacon) called palt. Ah, visst, jag tycker mycket om hjortronsylt på glass. Sverige är fantas...

The lingon berries popular in Sweden are a good substitute for cranberries. They're structurally different but similar in flavor--somewhat astringent, wanting added sugar for anything that's not straight savory.

I'd ditch the tarp, and save ALL the weight. I've done my last three treks with natural or no shelter, rather than a tarp tent, and both the pack weight and the construction have been immensely satisfying. Two of those three trips saw rain, one a steady downpour. I'd love to hear more about your te...

That's your first from-scratch leather project? WOW! Nicely done. :) (For what it's worth: a plain old dinner fork also gives you great spacing for leather sewing, if you want something cheap and easy to find) That makes sense for indenting the hole locations, but what do you use to back the piece ...

Thanks a ton. That looks very practical, I'll definitely use that.

I have been rethinking the period-appropriateness of oilcloth in our domain - I think it was Taurinor some time back who mentioned that oilcloth shows up surprisingly late in currently known documented sources. If memory serves, waxed cloth ("cerecloth") shows up in our period however. In...

Elleth wrote:If it needs adjustment, it can use the holes-and-thong method.

Could you point me toward a little more detail on this technique?

Iodo wrote:Nice work

Thanks very much. And thanks for encouraging me to give leatherwork a try!

Okay. 2 days, but yesterday I just cut the pieces and stained them. This is my first leatherworking project since scout camp--the first ever that wasn't just a clunky die-cut wallet kit or key fob or something, and I made it up as I went with no pattern. With that in mind, I'm pretty damn proud of i...

Eric C wrote:If you ever need to talk, shoot me a pm.

Thanks. Same to you.

September 2019: Ran 24 miles over eight sessions. Average pace of 8 min./mile. Mostly ran in modern exercise clothing, since I was running in town while travelling for work. Bought some minimalist zero-drop running shoes to simulate historical, heelless boots. Cardio improving markedly, may try to p...