fishskin leather

home made line caught pollock skin leather.

I've been playing with making leather from fish skin. This is the first piece I made, tanned with birch twig tannin. The whole process was surprisingly much less smelly than I anticipated, though softening (scruching) the dried leather was hard work. Still haven't decided what to do with it yet, making a notebook cover is most likely, though its very pretty with the light coming through it, so maybe using panels in a light shade is a possibility.

The fish ended up in thai fishcakes.

new baskets for old

3 years hard labour as a storage basket in our living room had left this painted cardboard basket looking a bit the worse for wear. It took a lot of retensioning and replacing broken strips to return it to almost pristine condition. The basket is an asymmetric twill and tabby weave with a hinged lid. The JRT is called Hex.