~Leather/Antler/Bone/Horn work~


Quiver for Crossbow Bolts,
Inspired by 15th to 16th century quivers from Germany and Austria.
September, 2010


Otterskin Haversack/Bag
June, 2005


Hunting Horn & Baldric/Hanger

September, 2006

Functional horn with a carved mouthpeice, and baldric/hanger designed after some examples illustrated in the 14th century hunting book of Gaston Phebus, also similar to the 16th century one in Durer's 1505 engraving "Saint Eustice / St. Hubert".

I started playing around with this type of leatherwork in the late spring of 2003. I have not done much with it yet, but here are pictures of what I have done so far... My first project was this leather rose... I was helping a friend work on stuff in my friend Adam's leather shop and I made the rose bud, or the part with petals... whatever it's called. I was not sure what I wanted to do with it, so I decided to keep going and add a leather stem with some leather leaves. I used a little bit of water while shaping the leather, and also worked a lot with the leather while it was wet from being dyed... as my fingers in the picture show. This one has a barrette clip on the back. This was either my second or third project of this sort. I also made a choker with a rose in the front and at least a dozen small leaves that are stitched together to form the neckband... I'm waiting to get pics of that one on a neck before I post any pictures of it.

Carved Antler and Bone


I started carving stuff out of bones and antler sometime during the summer
or late spring of '98. For most of the carving I use a Dremel Tool but
for some of it I use sharp knives too.

I prefer antler over bone for carving. Bone has lots of nasty pungy
stuff and you never know when you'll end up carving into it. I like
antler because every piece is a little different and only has a slightly poreous texture towards the middle. I really like the
ones with lots of those little nubby bumps around the base. Those
ones are lots of fun because you can use the antler's natural rumply bits
to look like hair (kinda like in the picture above) or a lion's mane
or whatever else you think it might look like.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a few pictures of some of the other stuff I've carved and a
couple works in progress...



its a pendant in the form of a stylized bird's head. Like mentioned above, I used the texture at the base of the antler for the ruffle of feathers around its head.. The black lines were carved in, but not noticable enough so I filled them with ink. I'd like to carve out the eyes and fill them with some kind of semi-precious stone or gem.


My ring carved from antler. Despite the thinness of the walls, it held up to quite a lot of wear.. then my finger got too big for it.