something completely different

Sorry I said I'd respond to comments and then haven't done so. My work is really stressful right now because the show we've been building for has to be done in like, 2 days and there's still a lot to do. I don't think I'll be doing much of my own stuff for a bit because I'm away from home most days and on my day off I just don't really feel like sitting in front of the sewing machine when I do it every other day. I think things will lighten up after this stuff is done though.

I did finish a different ( for me) project that I had been working on to give my friend Greg, who I will be visiting in Kentucky next weekend. Conveniently, this years Botcon (transformers convention) is in Cincinnati this year, so we'll be going to that together. I'm not really looking forward to the long greyhound bus ride from Canada, but it's a lot cheaper than air- and my passport is expired.

I wanted to make him something kind of medieval/fantasy like, so I made these arm braces out of veg-tan leather. I carved the celtic design into them and did a bit of stamping on it too. This is the first time I've ever done leather carving, so it's not exactly a masterpiece, but I think I did alright. The first brace I kind of cooked a bit too long in the oven after falling asleep, and it went a bit wonky in places. The pic shows one of them after drying but before I dyed and painted it. The weird stripes on the leather are from where I wrapped it in elastic to keep the leather on my makeshift arm form. Fortunately the dye covers them up.



I still have lots of leather left so I might do something else later. It's pretty fun once you get the hang of it.