Here we have the freshly unboxed Caribou legs. This portion would be comparable to the shins and feet of a person. These were shipped to me as fresh as possible, and were not what you would consider as "gross". There was no smell, no bodily fluids, and the hooves were quite clean. I could not have asked for a better start!

As the remains were in wonderful condition, I was able to get to work very quickly, and these stages were complete in an hour or so. In the photograph above, I have begun to remove the hide of the animal, working carefully to work back the facia, the connective tissue which connects the skin to the muscle.

In this photo you can see the tendons and sinews that control the movement of the animal's limbs, the white, rope-like fiber bundles. Each strand is a tough fibrous tissue tying muscle to bone, or bone to bone. These have a number of uses, and will be saved for a later project.

Now that we have gotten the simple part of the skinning process completed, we move into difficult territory, the knuckles, hooves, and dew claws. Caribou and Reindeer have fascinating feet. The hooves are dense but light, and the underside of each "paw" has a soft fatty pad, almost like a cat's, but covered in thick, insulating hair.

I was surprised to discover that the uppermost part of each hoof is soft, like a nail cuticle, which hardens as the hoof grows. This allowed me to cut into the hoof where necessary to save as much of the lovely two-toned hair around the foot as I could.

In this photo we can see the that the hair grows all the way to the hoof line, and in places actually through the hoof material. I would not have been able to save the hair without sacrificing some hoof material.

The little pink sliver in my hand is the Facia, or connective tissue, that binds the skin to the muscle and bone beneath. This material will need to be removed before the hide can be tanned. This excess material, including any skin or hoof trimmings, can be saved and later boiled in order to create Hide Glue for later projects. However, this process can create an unpleasant smell, and my spouse and housemates asked that I avoid this step.

All waste material was recycled in the garden.

In this step I have begun to separate the ligaments from the bone. in the case of these pieces, each bundle of fibers was contained in it's own "sheath" of tissue, which was connected to the bone. These sheathes contain a small amount of fatty fluid which allows the bundles to slide back and forth freely, controlling the movement of the joints below. Once these sheathes were open, the ligaments were easy to remove.

This is the first time that I have worked with any animal larger than a Black-Tailed Deer. In this step, the differences between a deer and a Caribou are quite pronounced. On the back of the shin bone pictured above, there is a deep channel protecting the large tendon bundle. On a deer, this channel is shallow, and it is easy to slip a knife under the tendon and slice it neatly. In this instance, I had difficulty in separating the pieces, and cut into my material further than intended. This did not cause any waste, but it means my fibers are shorter, and will have fewer uses later on.

Here is the Caribou skin once it has been separated from the bone and other connective tissues. Please note the texture of the "flesh" side of the hide. Visible are the stray pieces of fatty tissue and facia that will need to be removed prior to pickling and then tanning the hide. The area around the hooves are especially difficult to de-flesh, as the hair grows directly into the fatty tissue as a protective layer to insulate the animal's feet from the cold.

In this photograph I have begun the process of salting the hides with sea salt that I have collected from the ocean near my home. Once the hide is salted, it is important to allow it 24 -48 hours to rest. This step will allow me to draw the excess water from the skin in order to aid me in the next steps of scraping the hides further before my favorite step, PICKLING!

In my previous experience in working with Deer hooves, it is possible to dip the hooves into hot (not boiling) water in order to loosen the hooves so that they just "pop" right off. I was hoping to remove the hooves and use them for part of the pouch, but they were too strongly attached.

I desperately tried to pry the little hooves off, to no avail. However, this photograph shows the insulated pad on the underside of the hooves, in the area of white fur that remains. To the left we have one of the dew claws, which are held in place by the hide and a thin piece of connective tissue.

The materials for pickling with this recipe can be bought at the grocery store. Not pictured here is the 5gal bucket from the hardware store.

Fresh hides straight out of the pickle. These will need to be neutralized with a baking soda and water solution to halt the pickling process prior to applying the tanning solution.

While the hides are wet, they will need to be stretched on a frame, known as a "Herse". I did not have anything on hand to stretch my hides, so I salvaged some failed paintings for their frames. I tied the hides to the frame, alternating sides so that the hide is pulled in all directions, keeping the tension as even as possible. This will help your hide dry evenly and avoid shrinking.

Each hide is a little different, and there is no such thing as a "perfect hide" every hide will have scars, cuts where the your blade may have slipped, or sections where the hide was scraped too thin. Here, you can see the obvious difference in the size of the hides after they were stretched simply because my tension was different!

I chose this oil tanned leather for it's flexibility, color, and the distressed look of the piece, all of which suited my spouse well. The Oil tanned leather marks easily, but scratches and dings can be buffed out easily, and these added to the well worn look of the over all piece.

After cutting the straps for the bag, I made a template from a scrap of Manila folder and mirrored the "U" shape of the original Piece to the best of my ability.

As I was hoping for a "well worn" look to this piece, I intentionally sought out sections of the leather with "character". Any dings, discolorations, or scratches would add to the look I was going for, while also saving me useable leather for other, nicer projects. WASTE NOT!

I have cut the front section of the pouch, and have begun beveling (or rounding) the edges of the leather where it was cut, and I have used an awl to mark the holes for where the closure strap will be stitched.

While the "distressed" appearance here is a modern fashion, in period, these "choices" would have been considered the sign of a poor quality item, for a person of lower status. I would like this piece to appear as if we are attempting to dress above our means, with handmade goods, which is honestly not far from true!

In this photo I have begun to bevel the edges of the main body piece. Once the pouch has been assembled, having done this step in advance while the piece was still flat will be important.

In this photograph you can see the stitching channel for the leather on the lower piece of the leather. I did not have a channel cutting tool, so this guide mark was made with a compass tool, and embossed into the leather. The two tines of the compass were aligned with the edge of the leather, one flat against the work table, the other set on the leather itself, and lightly traced around its edge to provide me with a guide to punch my stitching holes.

It should be noted that it is important to take a step back from your project occasionally, to rest, check your tools, and have a snack.

I was so eager to work with the hide I had tanned, that I accidently stamped all the way around my pouch's edge, rather than only the section that would be stitched to the gusset.

I had resigned to covering this up with decorative stitching, but I got lucky later on...

Taking a break from my stitch hole stamping, having re-evaluated my course of action, I decided to use a softer, thinner piece of leather for the gusset of the pouch. My reasoning was twofold: If I used the same leather as the body pieces I had already cut, the pouch would be too wide and possibly not close. Also, having the thinner leather meant that, as the pouch was worn in, the seams would ease and the pouch would not sit so far our from the body of the wearer.

In this photo you can see a sneak peek of a future project in my Reindeer Project Series, a version of a Gotland Knife Sheath.

I have also decided to keep the raw edge of the Caribou hide so as not to lose my hard earned two-toned fur. I laid the template against the hide, and cut my window and straight edge for the top of the pouch closure. I did not want the fur on the back of the pouch where it would not be seen, or worn away where it meets the wearer's clothing.

Here I have used leather glue to bind the Caribou hide to the top of the leather prior to stitching.

Because i did not have a piece of elk antler large enough for the center plaque in the Extant piece, I decided to use a medallion made of leather to echo the forms on the original. I have decorated the leather with motifs found on silver and gold jewelry of the period.

I had been generously gifted a set of leather and metal punches for use in making largess. I had not gotten to use them yet, and I was eager to test them out. Using a damp sponge, I dabbed along the edge of the leather, and allowed it to plump up the leather. once the edge would take the mark from a finger nail, it was ready to stamp!

This photograph shows the early stage of stamping.

Using a handsaw and a course rasp, I began roughing out the shape of the antler, aiming towards a slightly flattened piece. It is important to remove the course, porous inner material, where the blood vessels had previously carried nutrients to the growing antler. This piece will be long enough to make 3 of 4 decorative plaques, the strap end, and a small ear spoon.

I have decided to try and keep these antler plaques and the belt end as close to the extant piece as possible, despite my spouse disliking the similarity to a flower with petals. I will need to cut a fourth plaque from a smaller piece of antler to match. I have very little to work with, so I have to make every piece count.

Once I was able to sand and file my plaques to roughly the correct shape, I started to cut into the edges with my cutting files. I later learned that I could have soaked the antler over night to soften it, and make these steps easier on my hands and faster to work.

In this step I paused to consider how I would attach these plaques. I did not want to rivet them, as with the cast metal pieces on the extant piece, so I would need to deviate from the original design in order to give myself "button holes" to stitch each piece securely. The last thing I want is for one of these carefully carved pieces to catch on something and go flying off.

Once I decided to deviate from the original design, I resigned myself to drilling additional holes for stitching the plaques down. I encountered difficulties in carving the fine details, as my inexpensive (read cheap) craft carving tools could not hold an edge for very long. I have since been informed that an engraving tool may work better for this task.

A work in progress photograph of one of the decorative plaques. This piece will need additional sanding and refining of edges and interior lines. The circles were made using a ring and dot augur that I made myself for this project. After a little more refining, each of these plaques will be rubbed with ochre paint to bring out the details. Hopefully this will also give them a patina to match the rest of the "weathered" looking pouch.

Once the main body of the bag has been assembled, burnished the raw leather to create a "cleaner" edge. Burnishing involves wetting the edge of the leather (or as in this case, applying a thin layer of beeswax) and rubbing the edge with a smooth tool, such as a polished dowel, stone, or bone folder. In a pinch, I have used the back of a metal spoon for this task. Specialty edge burnishing tools can be purchased in most places that sell leather working supplies for little cost, and they feature channels that will hold the leather and help work move more quickly.

This will close the pores of the leather, making it denser as the fibers are pressed together. The beeswax aids in reducing friction with the burnishing tool, and adds a nice sheen to the leather. In this photo you can see the burnished leather on the left and the unburnished leather on the right.

I have never tried to create a pouch like this before, and my eagerness to get started lead me to making a few mistakes.

First, when I started this pouch without proper research and scaled up the size, this forced me to make changes to the structure of the pouch. The extant piece has a single strap that starts on the back of the pouch, goes over and around the wearer's belt, and then through the front closure. There may be stitching to hold the strap in a loop shape, this is unclear. I had to remedy this by making TWO separate straps of different widths.

Secondly, I foolishly tried to attach these straps AFTER the main body pieces had been stitched together. It would have been much simpler to stitch these straps on had I attached them while the main body was still FLAT. This caused some issues later on...

Because of the issue with multiple straps, attached out of order, I was in a bit of a pickle. The wise thing to do may have been to unpick my stitches and attach my straps on the flat body pieces of the pouch. However, as I was nearing the deadline for the entry of this project, I grew overconfident. Even with pre-punched stitching holes, hand sewing the straps was difficult as the needle had to pass through 4 layers of leather in some places, and only two in others.

Had the extant strap method been used, this would not have been the case. However, due to the weight of the oversized pouch, the one thin strap may not have held for long.

In this photograph we can see that the tension required to hand sew through the many layers of leather, even with pre-punched holes, lead the leather to slip. Further more, you can see places where the leather was too thick to pierce, and there are two longer stitches where the closure strap would not accommodate the punch due to its size. Had I punched a third hole here, I would have perforated the leather like a sheet of paper, and it may rip.

If I were to use this method in the future (which I likely will not) I would have used a contact cement to bind the two layers of the support strap together before punching my holes and stitching. This would make it so that I would not have had to use a punch with holes so closely spaced, but it would likely be one more step from the extant piece, as we cannot be certain that such a method was used in its construction.

Like the decorative plaques, the strap end is carved from a section of elk antler. I had previously intended to carve the belt end with either a ring and dot design to match the plaques, or a whalebone design. However, this section had a lovely grain and coloring to it, and it also had to be thin enough to pass through the closure loop. Given the stamping and carving on the rest of the bag, I opted to leave it plain.

I drilled the holes on this section of antler with the tip of a thin craft knife, in the style of the time. Many such artifacts are noted to have "hourglass" drill holes, meaning that a sharp, tapered tool was used to bore a hole on one side, and then the opposite side, until the hole met in the middle. This was easily done with the antler, as once I had reached a decent depth, if the piece was held to the light, it was translucent enough to see through to the other side. I then sanded the piece with fine sandpaper, and then it was buffed to a shine with a linen cloth and a bit of beeswax.

When I had begun carving the plaques, I had thought that they had been made perfectly square. However, in the carving process they had changed slightly as I worked them, and they were all slightly different.

This is where the metal casting process in the extant piece would have resulted in more consistent plaques. Had I made a mold or a positive of the size and shape of the plaques, it would be easier to reproduce exact copies for as long as the mold should last. I may try this in pewter at a later time.

Here is a photo of the plaques on the bag after being sanded and buffed, but before being patinaed and stitched down.

After carefully positioning the plaques to compensate for their odd shape, I used sewing pins to hold them in place so that I could mark and punch the stitching holes with an awl. I opted to use a bronze-colored copper wire to stitch the pieces in place, as I was not confident that the waxed linen thread was fine enough to hold them.

I stitched through each hole twice, trying hard to lay the wire next to itself with each pass. The wire did shift in places, but the connection was very strong. I then looped the wire back around itself to "tie-off" and then pushed any sharp edges down into the leather.

I had chosen this method having seen extant belt ends where bronze wire had been used to secure metal to the flexible leather in areas where high friction may occur. It this instance, I had hoped it might keep the pieces held in place as protection against heavy use and a clumsy owner!