Making: Artisan Quality and Beauty Made by Hand

From whatever materials (leather, silver, copper, steel, wool, wood, nylon, grapes, wheat and yeast…), it’s just satisfying to make something by hand: Challenging at times, empowering, seeking that ideal balance between perfection and imperfection, balancing form and function, building skills, learning secrets, requiring curiosity, creativity, imagination, and patience; making something beautiful, lasting, and personal. Here are some of the things I’ve made. I have also written, performed, produced, and recorded two albums of original music, another form of making.

Fresh Flour (8/20). Organic Wheat Berries (3.4 lbs), ground in a Vitamix blender and then sifted (took about an hour) yielded 768 g of bread flour (which is simply whole wheat flour with some bran and germ sifted out) and 784 g of bran and germ.

Grape Jam (8/20). Organic Somerset seedless grapes (in backyard permaculture garden) + heat + sugar + labor = delicious jam + cool knowledge.

Sourdough bread (7/20). Once upon a time, all bread that rose was sourdough bread. Sourdough uses the natural yeast in the environment and this yeast digests wheat in ways that industrial food processes cannot imitate, rendering gluten into a more digestible and delicious form.

Leather Axe Collar (2/19) Made in prepration for winter camping in the Sylvania Wilderness (story and video). It has already done its job of protecting the handle.

Hand-carved Spoon. Birch (11/18) & Maple (6/20) (Notes on spoon carving) (Carving Spoons and Relationships: Gandhi to Gregg to Nearings to Coperthwaite to Forbes)

The spoon below was carved for a neighbor out of a Japanese maple tree that was meaningful to her. The curved handle is an homage to her late dog’s tail.

Robin Wood Carving Axe Leather Sheath (10/18) & Hook Knife Sheath (9/18)

Backpacking Down Quilt, Summer weight, 19 ounces (6/18). Used as one of four layers for winter camping in -28° F (-33° C) temperatures in Sylvania Wilderness (story and video)

Ray-way products ultralight backpack, Weighs 9.95 ounces for 2600 cubic inch/43 liter capacity (5/18)

Knitted Wool Scarf (12/17)

“Fancy Feast” Alcohol Stove for backpacking (11/17)

About 3 inches wide and 3 inches tall, this stove will boil about 2 cups of water in 6 minutes using denatured alcohol and function in the winter because it uses a carbon felt wick. It’s made from a Fancy Feast cat food can (bottom) and a tomato paste can cut so that it rises about 1″ above the cat food can. The tomato paste can has a hole in the top for venting and 4 holes in the bottom (not visible in picture) so that alcohol fuel pored in the center leaks through the holes and gets absorbed by the carbon felt wick that wraps the tomato paste can. The tomato paste can is then simply squished down into the Fancy Feast can. For more details on alcohol as a fuel and links to DIY stove-making, see this article.

Open Source Ecology Compressed Earth Brick (CEB) Press and Power Cube (8/17) (details)

Belt (11/16) and Accessories Belt Clip (10/16)

Hand-carved Spatula Handle (10/16)

I love this old spatula. It deserves a new handle, hand-carved from a log with hand-hammered copper rivets and then hand rubbed with linseed oil.

Ferrocerium Rod Fire Starter Sheath (10/16)

This is my version of a Ferro rod sheath inspired by a design from MCQBushcraft. Made from antler, full grain veg-tanned leather, and a medium hard ferrocerium rod (hard enough to last a long time, soft enough to strike relatively easily). Used for bushcraft, camping, and anytime you need a spark.

Spyderco Honing Stone Sheath and Strop (9/16)

Small Sterling Silver Pendant (8/16)

GPS coordinates and nickname with anniversary date.

Kama Sheath (8/16)

Large Sterling Silver Pendant (7/16)

GPS coordinates and nickname with anniversary date.

“The Badger” Messenger Bag (7/16)

Hand-dyed a custom Cherry Chocolate with Savannah Red accents, this 11″ x 14″ bag is made of full grain vegetable-tanned leather and designed to hold a MacBook Air plus several books. Newspaper pocket in back. Customizable modules hold whatever you wish. Hand-stitched and hand-burnished. Fit with a stainless steel cobra buckle and solid nickel-plated hardware. Made in free time over the course of 6 months (1/16 – 7/16).

Swiss Army Knife Sheath (10/15) & Sheath for Rumi’s little pocket knife (10/15)