Making the Possibles Bag

Several years ago, I made a shoulder bag that I still often carry today. It is the perfect size for a small field bag or hunting pouch. It was a lot fun looking at various designs, mostly from the 18th century to try and come up with something that would fit my needs. When I […]

Medieval Turnshoes

I’m re-sharing an older post of some experimental turnshoes I made quite a few years ago. These were based on some Scandinavian examples from the archaeological record. They came out pretty good for a first try. My only modification would be to tighten the width through the arch and lengthen the toe area slightly. I […]

Leatherworking Images from the Middle Ages

Some things never really change… While looking through my image archive I came upon some leather working illustrations dated to the early 15th century. All but one of the images below is from the extremely informative Mendel manuscript dated 1425 created at Nuremberg, in what is now Germany. Creating leather from animal hides has been […]

Making a Pack Basket

From one of my new favorite blogs Running With Sheep. Johan and Sanne are a couple of remarkable outdoors – bushcraft – survival enthusiasts with more than a touch of philosophy thrown in. Their most recent project shows how to convert a run-of-the-mill thrift store find into a functional pack basket. From what I can […]

At Rabbitstick 2017

About the early shoes…

Ghillies (simple shoes) again

Here’s a simple shoe design that was made by our ancestors before there were shoe shops or Zappos. Much of the Europe population, both male and female wore a variation of this for many millenia, right up into the early 20th century. They are commonly associated with their Celtic cousins in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland […]

Meet the Maker

A rare self-portrait of the Maker responsible all this nonsense… I’ll need to make a proper one; more in-focus and with a better mirror next time.

The Vikings Used Comfortable Shoes

One of the original boots found in the Oseberg Burial Mound dating back to 834 AD. (Photo: skinnblogg.blogspot.no) A number of complete Viking Age shoes found in Scandinavia and England have the same characteristics. They are flexible, soft and mostly made of cattle hide, but also other kinds of leather was used. There are complete…

Simple but Ingenious

Tying your own shoes – Before looking at the ethnographic literature I experimented with tying up some simple sandals with mixed success. It turns out that it’s not as simple as one might think. Now I’m a connoisseur and am always making mental notes when I see old depictions, or in the old world, images […]

Huaraches!

There are still Huaraches north of old Mexico. As I prepare to resole my huaraches I thought it might be good to look back on them as a very viable hand-made shoe. For a long time while searching for huarache construction techniques, I could only find the simplest tire sandals and many links to “barefoot” […]