I've finally started work on the pouches I promised Eluned for the newcomers kits the Barony will be selling to try to make back some of the costs of getting a booth at ComicCon in Ottawa in May. I think the booth is a great recruitment idea, so I was happy to offer to do up some basic leather pouches, but that was several months ago and we're now getting to crunch time.
From my previous post, it's obvious the circle pouch idea was a no-go, I'm not wasting that much leather!
I'm using some of my garment-weight pig skins that I have in my stash. The colours aren't so bright that they are obviously modern, but I haven't been using it as much lately as I've shifted to using more veg tan (as much as possible) to bump up the period-ness of my projects.
Design-wise, I've thrown out the circle pouch and decided to go with one of the custom designs I did earlier for potential use with my stick-purse project. The design details and pictures are here.
I had a few reasons for picking this design:
1) The pattern was developed based on artwork, so it shows the fact that we do historical research, not just dress up in costumes.
2) It's a fairly unisex design. I thought about doing scalloped draw string pouches, or some of my other patterns I've made before but they tend to be focused on one gender or the other. This way, all of the pouches will be the same (except for the colours) and Eluned won't have to differentiate which kits she gives people.
3) It's a new design so it's not like there are dozens of people walking around with pouches that I've made that look the same. On the other side, it doesn't reduce the uniqueness of some of the other pouches I've custom made for people previously.
4) Selfishly, it's good practice and will help me fine-tune the design in case I decide to use it for a future stick-purse.
I went to fight practice yesterday with Avelyn, and was able to cut out the pouch body pieces for three of them (one red and two dark blue). Still have a bunch more to cut out, plus the draw strings and belt loops/flaps. I'm taking some time off from work next week, and one of the things I plan to do is churn these out and get them done so I can get them to Eluned with lots of time to spare.
