Coming Soon

Here's the final product. Full Horween shell cordovan, absolutely one of the nicest pieces I'll ever be able to make. Coming soonish, need to find time to make them all.

Cordovan

Cordovan is a super super nice leather made from the hind quarters of a horse. It's known for it's longevity, and it's ability to be reconditioned to almost new from almost any state of disrepair. It's also known for being the most expensive leather in the world, and because only two tanneries make it using a 6 month tanning process, this is usually true. I got some in this week, and carefully made a wallet to feel out the material. I lined the bill slot with some antique fabric I've been stashing away- it's a beautiful woven design c. 1855-1862. It's such nice stuff! Wallet is available in the shop now, for a special price of $132. 

Brimfield 2011

Three times a year, Brimfield, MA is host to thousands of antique dealers in one of the largest shows in the country. You'll usually see a lot of corporate buyers in the first two days, browsing the booths at or before dawn to get the most unique things. Around Friday and Saturday (when, many say, "all the good stuff is gone") the prices drop to almost normal flea market prices, and the retail shoppers come through to find cool stuff for their houses. 

This year I went both Wednesday and Saturday. With 5000 dealers and about 150-200 football fields worth of area to cover, it's easy to spend this much time and never see the same booth twice. I never really buy much, so my haul this year was a bit unusual because I got a lot of cool stuff. Most of it was shop stuff- wooden boxes, overbuilt from a sewing factory, are cheap and sturdy and last forever. I got a few tools, and a couple old lisence plates for my 1916 plate collection. However, my favorite things are usually those from the selvedge booths, because while they're not super old you can make them into cool unique (inexpensive) things for your home. 

First up was this industrial outdoor wall light. It started out pretty rusty, so I took it apart and cleaned/painted it last night, then got baseplate supplies and wired it up today. 

the second was just a simple old mason jar. Drilled a hole in the zinc top, and got one of the simple kits to turn it into a lamp. Super easy, looks pretty neat on the workbench.

I grabbed a few other things that need cleaning, etc, so I'll probably post about them in the upcoming week!

Out of this world

I'm sure I was one of the last people to see the film Avatar about a month ago. While I really loved the whole film, I thought the imagery was absolutely stunning. I created this hand dyed bifold using the film as inspiration, and it's available now in the shop. Not sure if I'll ever be able to create another- so this one's a pretty limited release.