landsknechts purse

I am not very good at XVI century costume. So when I was asked to make a landsknechts purse I have spent quite some time googling for proper source. Probably 16c. reenactors will correct me, but it looks like there are quite few sources for purses of first quarter of 16c. But this one by Urs Graf shows a girdle purse perfect for reenactment :)

This is a ruther big girdle purse with two small pouchlets. There is no sign of a buckle strap or other closure type. From what I managed to find in the web, this is common for 16c purses.

There was a budget limit on the purse, so no fancy tooling on the flap for this one. But leaving such a big space just plain did not look good too. So I made this simple design.

The flap, as well as the opening are reinforces with thinner leather. The small coin pouchlets are attatched with leather cord. On the rear panel there are 2 girdle loops.

I have used 2.8-3.2 thick vegetable tanned leather for the main parts and 1mm thick veg tanned for reinforcements.

That would be all :) More 16c purses are on the way!

Itallian purse for my brother :)

Here is one project, that I'm quite proud about. I made this purse as a birthday gift to my brother Andrey.

The source for this purse was kindly provided by Eugenio Larosa. It was a very, very high quality picture of De Sphaera manuscript, the famous itallian astrological book, which dates about 1460. Of course, like everyone into reenacting Italy I have studied this manuscript previously, but never did I have a chance to have such a high quality image!! One more treasure for me))))

This is how I used to see this page. The ring-framed purse on the foreground is quite well visiable, but the purse on the guy on the background... Well, it could be anything.

And here is what I saw on the new copy of this page!

And even more!

This is quete enough to make a nice purse! But as it was a birthday present, I wanted to add something special to the purse. Nice tooled design on the purse was an obvious solution. But what do I tool on the purse? In search for a motif I remembered, that just several weeks ago I've been to Feodosia, which in 14-15c. was a real capital of Genoese colonies in Taurica. Good for me, I took several pics in the local museum. One of the pics was a stone-carved blazon of Kafa! What a nice solution, as we are reenacting itallian colonists in Taurica of the last year of might Kafa\Sugdeya\Chembalo (to be true, we're still in search of "legend" of our group).

Here is the result of my work

Details of the blazon

And closer

With opened flap

Inside

Pouchlets

Strip closer

And from the back :)

Well, that would be all. Thanks for reading :)

Itallian purse based on image by Baccio Baldini (1470-1480)

This is quite strange, but itallian iconographic sources show VERY few girdle purses. So every time you find one it's like finding a real treasure!

This one was provided me by Eugenio Larosa. I picked the right one. The image is not very clear, so my version of this purse is an  assumtion in a way.

The purse is quite big: 26x22cm

I decided to make it with two compartments and three pouchlets.

The rear part of the first compartment is made with hand-woven linen cloth.

The pouchlets are stitched on the perimeter with linen thread. The same thrad used for the braids.

Details

The plait is 3.5mm wide

On the rear it looks like this

The bucle we made for this purse

By the end of this week I will make a one more post on the itallian purse (new one), source for which was kindly provided by Eugenio Larosa as well. Cheers!

Got married!

That is why I posted so rear. With all the preparations and stuff, just didn't have enough time for the blog. But now I do, and there are some interesting posts coming soon!

Girdle bag from painting by Vincenzo Catena

While I prepare some big posts for this blog, here's a new purse.
It is based on the purse from the "A Warrior adoring the Infant Christ and the Virgin" by Vincenzo Catena.

I made this purse of 2mm thick veg-tanned cow leather. It has only one compartment. I think when I make it again I will add a pouchlet inside.

I am quite pleased with the result.

Purse with harpies

This was quite a long project. And very challenging.

I was asked to make a purse, based on one from Metropolitan Museum.

Эту сумку делал довольно долго. Непростой проект.
Речь идёт вот об этой сумке из Музея Метрополитан

This purse is published in Purses in Pieces by Olaf Goubitz. The description says:

The splendidly decorated front panel of a small purse from Nieuwlande. 17x15cm. The lattering is hand-made; the eagles were stapm-impresed.

But the purse should had been only BASED on this one. The customer asked to make Nuremberg harpies instead of the eagles on girdle loops. And the text tooled on the front panel was to be "O MARIA MATER DEI MEMENTO MEI SEMPER".
I decided to make the harpies with stamp, like the eagles were made on the original piece. I am very bad at woodcarving, so I asked my friend Oleg to make the stamp.

Эта сумка опубликована в  Purses in Pieces Олафа Губитца. Описание гласит:

Роскошно декорированная передняя панель маленькой сумочки из Nieuwlande. 17х15см. Буквы сделаны вручную; орлы выдавлены с помощью штампа.

Но сумка, которую я собирался делать должна была быть лишь ОСНОВАНА на сумке из Метрополитена. Заказчик попросил сделать вместо орлов - гарпий (герб Нюремберга). А текст заменить на "O MARIA MATER DEI MEMENTO MEI SEMPER". Что переводится вроде как "О МАРИЯ МАТЕРЬ БОЖЬЯ ПОМНИ МЕНЯ ВЕЧНО".
Я видел несколько новоделов этой сумки, сделанных отвечественными мастерами. Но никто не исользовал штамп для тиснения. Вот я и решил сделать как в описании тиснение штампом. Но резать в дереве я не умею, поэтому штамп делал мой чрезвычайно рукастый друг Олег.

We have mede several attempts of tooling. Finally the stamp was completed. The overall process seems to be very simple. I used veg-tanned about 1.6mm thick leather. Overall the process of tooling looked like this:
- I moisted the leather
- Used a clamp to tool the leather. About 15-20 min would be enough.
- Than, very carefully I have removed the clamp, turned the leather grain side up (at this point you should be carefull not to move the stamp on the leather), and, while the leather was still a little moist, I used a modelling tool (just a simple spoon-shape one) to press the leather in the stamp. The depth of the stapm in some parts is about 2.5mm, so the leather 1.6mm thick needs to be pressed with modeling tool.
- Done!

Не сразу получилось сделать штамп нужной глубины. Но после нескольких попыток вышло хорошо. В общем и целом процесс прост. Я использовал кожу КРС растительного дубления толщиной около 1.6мм.  В общем и целом процесс тиснения выглядел вот так:
- Я смочил кожу
- Прижал штамп к коже при помощи струбцины на 15-20 минут.
- Потом очень осторожно разжал струбцину и, не отнимая штамп от кожи, перевернул так, чтобы кожа лежала мездрой наверх. Тут очень важно не сместить случайно штамп по отношению к уже продавленному рисунку. Затем, пока кожа была ещё влажная, я при момощи маленькой лопатки продавил кожу внуть штампа. Просто получается что штамп имеет глубину до 2.5мм, а кожа только 1.6мм тощиной. Так что продавливать нужно. Если тиснить в более толстой коже, то продавливать будет не нужно.
- Готово!

The tooling of the front pannel was quite time-cunsuming, as you can imagine :) It may sound weird, but it was fun :)

Тиснение передней панели весьма трудо- и времезатратное дело. Но было весело ))

The very unclear thing for me is the construction of the original purse. The inside of it. The purse is very, very small. And the picture that they show on the museums website does not explain a thing to me.
I have several thoughts, and I will make a separate post about it later.

Мне совсем не ясно какова конструкция оригинальной сумки, конструкция внутренностей (отделения, карманы). Эта сумка очень, очень маленькая, и вот по этой фотке с сайта музея лично мне ничего не ясно. Ну есть пара соображений, но я их изложу отдельным постом.

For this purse I decided to make the "classic" inside construction. So the purse has the flap compartment, the main compartment and two drawstring pouchlets.

Так что для своей сумки я сделал "классическую" нутрянку: отделение под клапаном, основное отделение и 2 кармана.

I guess that's all. As promised, I am trying to post here more often :)

Такие дела :)

Purse based on the woodcarving from Frankfurt Cathedral

My interst in reenactment is 15c. Genovees colonies in Taurica (Crimea). Very rear can we find local artifacts. There are some though, I will post em later.

And when it comes to late 15c. sources for purses in Italy, you can find very few. I cannot say for sure why, but in iconographic sourses from all over the Europe, from Poland to Spain and From England to Austria, there are lots of purses in the images. But not Italy.

Add to this that I am russian, and reenacting itallians is a very interesting hobbie for me, but this is not history of my nation.

So it makes me feel very jelous when one could do reenactment based on local sources. And this was just the case with this purse. Constantin von Bernuth from Germany asked me to make a purse for him. He himself is very,.very talanted leatherworker, so I was very pleased with his order. He had found a wonderfull source for the purse: a woodcarving of the choirs in Frankfurt Cathedral, which is 700m from his place! Isn't that amazing?

В реконструкции я занимаюсь поздним 15 веком, тема - генуэзцы в Крыму. Очень трудно найти именно местные источники. Что-то есть, но мало.
И в целом, с источниками на сумки на 15 век, Италия, очень туго. Я не могу сказать точно почему. Есть куча источников на всевозможные сумки от Польши до Испании, от Англии до Австрии. Но вот сумки на Италию можно пересчитать по пальцам одной руки.

Поэтому мне очень завидно, когда кто-то занимается реконструкцией по местным источникам. Как, например, с этой сумкой. Некий Константин из Германии (сам очень крутой кожевник) заказал у меня сумку. Он нашёл замечательный источник: резную статую из алтаря во Франкфуртском Соборе, который находится в 700 метрах от его, Константина, дома.

Here is the picture of woodcarving from buildindex

Фото алтаря с билдиндекса

And if that was not enough, Constantin took a very detailed picture of the carving! It dates about 1340.

(UPDL the picture was taken by Peter Ahlqvist)

Мало того, он сам ещё сфотографировал сумку в очень хорошем качестве. Датируется примерно 1340 годом.

More to that, Constantin has sent me some very nice veg tanned leather: sheep, deer, calf, cow. He asked me to make the purse in sheep leather. This was the first time I worked with this leather. And I must say that it is very tricky!

First, I decided to make a wallnut ink to colour the purse. There are planty of wallnut trees in Sevastopol growing everywhere. So that was not a problem to find some. I have removed the peel and ate the wallnuts :)))

Более того, Константин мне прислал крутейшей кожи растительного дубления: овечьей, лосиной, телячьей, коровьей. Себе он хотел сумку из овечьей кожи. Я в первый раз работал с таким материалом. Оказалось, она очень хитрая в работе эта кожа.

Сначала я решил сделать краску из корок грецкого ореха. У нас, в Севастополе, они растут по всюду. Сперва я очистил кожуру и съел орехи :)))

Than boiled the shells

Потом сварил кожуру.

Than added some spirit to the ink.

И в конце процедил и добавил спирта чтобы краска не протухла.

The next step was making the pattern and cutting the leather. The pattern is very simple, so that was not a problem. I have cutten the pattern and coloures it with wallnut ink. Than used lineseed oil to make the colour even darker. Here I must say that I am not 100% satisfied with the colour. I think that I should have harvested wallnuts earlier, when their shells are more juicy. I will experiment more. Anyway, I got ruther nice greyish brown colour.

As I mentioned. the sheep leather is very tricky. It stratches all the time, it is vey easy to leave marks on its surface with your fingers and fingernails while you sew. Not only does it stratches, but it also shrinks! So in the last moment I have decided to reinforce the flap and loops of the purse. Otherwise the flam would look like rag. Here I must say that the sheep leather is vey soft, and making the reinforsement was easy and fun. I used linen thread. Seams are about 2-2.5mm.

Потом нужно было сделать выкройку сумки и вырезать её из кожи. Выкройка очень простая, так что это было тоже просто. Вырезал кожу, покрасил краской. Потом пропитал льняным маслом, чтобы ещё темнее было. Нужно сказать, что я не полностью доволен цветом. Нужно было раньше собирать орехи, пока они ещё молодые и корка у них сочная. Как вызреют буду опять экспериментировать. Как бы там ни было, получился красивый иссера-коричневый цвет (какое смешное слово, "иссеро"))))

Как я уже говорил, овечья кожа очень необычная в работе. Непростая. Мало того что она всё время растягивается, так ещё и сжимается обратно! Чисто как ткань. Поэтому я решил укрепить клапан и шлёвки. Кожа мягкая это было сделать просто. Подшивал малюсенькими стяжками по 2-2.5мм. Красиво!

I have also reinforced the loops, but not the same way as the edge of the flap. See the pics

И шлёвки пришлось усилить, подшив нитку.

The next stage is to sew the pouchlets. To do that correctly, I have used the hide glue to glue the pouchlets. And than stitch em. To be true, that was the first time I used the hide glue. That is so interesting! I will keep on experimentinh :) Here you can see me melting the glue with candle. The round things with anchor are old soviet bobs, used in the ship to fix the sea map on place. They are made of lead inside. I use them to fix the big skins of leather on place.

Теперь нужно было пришить кармашки. Чтобы сделать всё аккуратно, я их сначала подклеил при помощи мездрового клея. Если честно, пользовался им в первый раз. Очень инетерсно, буду продолжать эксперименты. Вот эти штуки с якорями, это такие свинцовые грузики, их использовали чтобы разложить карту. Севастополь - база Черноморского Флота :) Ура!

So, the rest of work was just stitching. The sheep leather is so soft, it is much harder to make straight stitches in it. But I did my best :)

Дальше оставалось только сшить. Кожа очень мягкая, гуляет. Было не так просто.

It takes quite some time to stitch the pouchlets, so I decided to make the process even more German :)) Sewing purse based on a german sourse of leather from Germany for German guy. While sewing I have listened the lecture about the phlosophy of great German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Man, I need to make at least dozen purses more to understand what it was all about :)))

Пришивание кошелёчков заняло какое-то время, так что я решил что нужно сделать вообще мега-немецкую сумку. Шил сумку по немецкому источнику из немецкой кожи для парня из Германии. Пока шил - прослушал лекцию по философии Мартина Хайдеггера. Ох уже эти немцы, мне чтобы разобраться что там к чему нужно ещё с десяток сумок сшить :)

The pouchlets are closed with deerskin lace

Кармашки стягиваются шнурком из лосиной кожи.

I guess that's it :) I will try now to post here more often.

Ну, вот и всё. Постараюсь теперь писать чаще.