Making things in general

A few months back I made this tote bag for my brother’s girlfriend. Now I made another one. It’s slightly different: its bottom is made out of rhubarb-tanned sheep leather, made from sheep that graze freely on the Lüneburger Heide in Germany. I liked the sound of that!  I bought this stuff at Dictum (link), […]

A friend of mine asked me to make him a wallet. Requirements: it should be able to hold coins, bills, and 8 cards or so. I made him this wallet out of recycled veg-tanned leather and waxed linen. The outside comes from an old bag that had a lot of water damage. It also supplied […]

A friend of mine is just starting out as a hairdresser. She had this transparent plastic case for the holster she carries her combs and scissors in (there must be an official term for that thing…). The plastic case was falling apart, so I made her this waxed linen case for her birthday. The red […]

Update: I made another one of these, with new leather and red linen for the bottom. I’ve been using a blue “pukkel” (a Dutch marines supply bag that looks a bit like a haversack, very common in the Netherlands) every day the last couple of years. It’s made out of virtually indestructible canvas, it’s simple […]

Well, it’s been raining for days and in barely a week temperatures have dropped from nearly tropical to 13 celsius. I’ll have to face it, it’s autumn. Time to waterproof my stuff. I read a lot about Greenland wax and otter wax, and though: “that shouldn’t be hard to make”. Turns out, it isn’t! These […]

Whenever trees are cut down or heavily pruned, I try to get some nice bits to carve. One of my neighbours was cutting down a young pencil cedar a few weeks back, and I got this beautiful branch.

On our way to our holiday destination in the south of Slovakia, my girlfriend an I visited Dictum last summer. I think it’s the largest store for traditional tools and supplies, located in southern Bavaria. Judging by the prestige and fame of this shop, I was hoping for a massive store to wander through for […]