2013 Garden

 Last year we were shocked when spring ran into summer and our front yard exploded with 13 different colored rose bushes. It was the kind of surprise that new homeowners fantasize about...and it was awesome!

The area to the left of our driveway is a well established garden. Roses, filler flowers beneath them, and hopefully they are idiot proof (I have no clue where to get started with roses). Last year, my coworker came and spent HOURS cleaning up the roses for me.  And it showed, they were beautiful. It was awesome.

The rest of the yard? Not so much. It is this horrible silty - sandy poo.  It wouldn't grow zucchini. Seriously, Zucchini died here.  Last year I killed peas, zucchini, tomatos, berry plants, a new rose bush (or honestly 2), pansies, strawberries and a whole host of other assorted veggies I attempted to grow. It failed. 

 Now, its coming up on garden season again so we are trying again. I may be a demented optimist, but we will see. We are going to try doing small raised beds up front to see what we can do.  We are going to plant thorny berry bushes underneath the daughters bedroom, and hope they stick it out and grow into terrible beasty bushes :) Protection when she is a teenager.

We are also going to do several topsy turvey's - they did well here last year, and the house has a TON of the hooks for them along the back yard.  We are also doing all of this in a drought, with watering restrictions....

So..yeah - Nuts :)

High Gear

So, I am finally kicking it into High Gear. Mostly because my beloved husband wants me to start his armor, so I must finish my brothers.  Tonight I did all the interior articulation for the chest, did the front strapping and buckles and the side strap.  Sadly, I bought 1 inch buckles, and I need 2 inch ones for the size strapping.  That means back to Tandy's Leather I go. 

Hopefully tomorrow night I will get the side buckles on, the will do the pauldron articulation and figure out the axe-cover attachment method. 

So, In addition to everything else, my dear brother refuses to make a decision about color. I may leave it plain, or it may become black.  I am also thinking about tooling either a Tree of Life or a simple celtic knot onto the breast plate. What do you think? Leave it tan, or make it black with a green design?

Making Progress

Another photo-less post, but hopefully you will all cheer with me when I tell you I got him pinned (or duct taped) into it!!! YAY!

I was able to pin down my brother for his armor sizing and mark all the right sizes. Now its time for hole punches, and buckles and straps, and articulation, and then figuring out bracers and greaves and the darn war-skirt/tasset.  No matter that he still hasn't decided if he wants tooling, or color, or details.  Nor that I am not sure if I have enough leather left. (Please ignore the eye twitch, I swear it's normal).

And then, after all the sizing, marking, and hole starting...I left it all in Palmer Lake.  Sigh.  I should get it all on Thursday and then can try to hard-craft it through the weekend and have something substantial to show him when I see him again. My worst case scenario I will see him in two weeks. Imagine how cool it would be to have it all ready by then.  So...please, plague me, harass me, and ask me how it is coming! Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Designs from the dark places

I am moved! That means it is time to get back out the tools and finish the armor so I can get started on Kasha's.

Tonight began with design finalization. He had picked out a design he liked online, and my job was to translate that into something that can be tooled. Let me tell you, 13 point star = NOT POSSIBLE! At least not on a small emblem sized breast piece. Now, on a back plate, I could do it, but not in less than three inches with hand tooling.

Here is the inspiration piece. I spent over an hour trying to make it work. It simply would NOT agree to being done. After a little discussion with the buyer we discussed an alternative design, it took about half an hour and we had a new design (I will try to get it uploaded tomorrow).

It works much better! So, art completed it was time to get back to work. I took all the lames (different pieces of the armor) and soaked them in water to make them simpler to tool. I am curious if any other leather workers do this, or if they all use a chemical softner and just spray it on like my other friend who does leather work? Well, began with the piece that would need the emblem tooled, I prefer to do the harder work first and ended up with a design that slipped :( *cries* which meant I had to recut the top lame and soak and retool.

Pity my hands guys, seriously. Painful to do that much detail twice. So, after failing to cut or slipping up with the razor twice I finally got the third try at the recut to go correctly, though I bet I will have messed the sizing a little, which will mean some more work when I am doing the articulation in a few days. Or it might mean it, I don't know yet.

I still need to decide how I am going to recut the second lame. He wants more range of motion with it, which simply means some additional articulation. But, I have to decide if I am going to straight-cut across the shaped lame, or if I am going to curve it and straighten the top of the other half (shortening the whole thing by 1-3 inches). I just have not decided yet. I think it might look strange to have a single straight lame amongst the curves, and it might hinder the effectiveness of motion. I truly don't know.

So, All the lames but the one still needing decisions made are tooled and are currently tied up to shape while they dry. It will be 1-2 days before they are ready for dye and articulation points, so it gives me a little time to figure out the final questions. Any thoughts? How do you as a crafter deal with questions when you don't have anyone else you know who does this craft?