Punching leather

Sounds weird, doesn't it? Punching leather... what it really is, is hammering leather. You take a sharp metal hole punch and hammer it into the leather. I've discovered that I can do a one-hole punch, although I cannot handle the four-hole punch. One beat with the hammer and the punch goes all the way through the leather and into the punching board below.

Good thing Gryph has that punching board, too, or the desk would be a sorry mess!

It's hard on the ears and I am online right now because I needed a break. But hey, I don't feel like a failure anymore! I *can* do this!

Pics will come later of the bag I am working on. It's the softer leather with the double-layered back. It's big enough to hold anything a small purse would hold, tissues, glasses, keys, phone, checkbook, etc, so it would certainly do as a replacement for men's pants pockets.

That's how these bags got their start, yanno? I would have thought (in my taking-today-for-grantedness) that they were for women---but not so! The big purse-looking bags were for men in Medieval times, and when women used bags, they were smaller, daintier, quite often cloth rather than leather, and were also quite often hidden under their overgowns. Funny how fashions change... men got pockets and women got purses.

The one Gryph is working on is VERY much like a purse, mostly because the leather is that weight but also because it's bigger. I like it a lot. I'll take pics of that one tonight, too.