Leather projects and Harvest Time

Remember the picture of the very unsightly bag in my last post? I gave it "non leather project" as title; and when I was writing those words, I had a small aha moment: why don't I double the handles with a strap of leather? I am a leather designer. I was lucky to find a matching color. It turned out rather good.

LoveLea made leather straps for thiss bag.

As you can see, I haven't found time to sew the painted panels to the bag, I just pinned them on. When I am in a hurry, my sewing machine senses my mood and won't sew well. I prefer to wait till later.

Do you have similar or other project? Tell me in the comments below, I would love to hear from you.

Nights in olive oil

Before going to bed/sleep, we make a tour in the garden, mainly to control if the dog has come home. We give food and shelter to a stray dog; her fur is mostly white with black, coal like eyes;  she's just adorable and sweet and peace loving, loves to be pet and stroked and cuddled. When it is windy and there is a lot of rustle from the platan she stays outside, is afraid of the noise, she won't even come inside to eat. She has a metal bowl I tap to the granite stones, this sound tells her dinner is being served. We didn't raise her and learned her to eat meat and veggies; she has her own taste and is picky: bread with chicken broth and a piece of chicken  or boiled bones and bread; sometimes I give her dark bread, left over from the bread we eat, but she won't eat it, just sifts it out. I wanted to make her a nice leather collar, but just the sight of a collar makes her run away, there must be an old issue with collars. If she wears a collar, people know she is not a stray dog.

Our dog resting with coal black eyes.

Since 3 days, the night smells heavily of olive oil; there are a few mills in the neighborhood and the pressing of the oil must have started. Funny, it only smells at night and not during the day since the press works continuously. I love the color and taste of freshly pressed olives: gold with a green shine and tasting like fruit juice, not oily at all. Take some fresh cheese, crush it in the olive oil, add some black pepper and  wild thyme, maybe a little salt and eat it outside on toasted bread, delicious!!!

White choker with skull closure

This is harvest time and there is a lot to do in the garden, even if it is a small garden. This means I don't have the opportunity to make my leather jewels; I'll show you the one I made this week. Lately I'v been busy husking walnuts.

Walnut harvest.

It s a time consuming job because the nuts are small and very very hard; a nutcracker is of no use, 2 stones do the job, a big one with an indentation as anvil and a smaller one as hammer. The local stone is granite thus I have the luxury to crush my walnuts with granite. (Can you imagine a village where for the ground floor of the houses granite has been used?) Second inconvenience: there are lots of rotten ones or they have WORMS! This to the delight of a very cheeky, bold jay. He looks you in the eye and continues to do what he intended to do. Still it was difficult to take a picture.

Jay in the garden

We don't want to use chemicals or harsh stuff so we put up with 1/3 of bad nuts. But last week somebody said the three might have worms around the roots and this could be true because we keep a compost heap right beside the tree. We should make our compost on another spot  next year. Why do I go through all this trouble? Because they taste so good, very delicious with a deep, intense, well nutty taste. The jay only comes around when there are walnuts shells laying around.

Jay in the background steeling a walnut 

Time to tell you about my creations: I had 2 closures with skulls, one I  used some time ago for a choker with dark brown leather and I was ready for another one; my leather supplier had a long piece of white leather, nice and thick and stocky. My supplier asked me: will you be able to use it, because it was very sturdy. I said: I will sew it by hand. Oh my, he was right: it took me a lot of time and power to punch the holes for the sewing; once the wholes punched, the sewing with black linen thread went smooth and easy; I like the result, how about you?.

LoveLea's white choker with skull closure

If you like it, it is for sale on my fb page LoveLea: (https://www.facebook.com/denyshildemaria.lovelea/)

Lovelea's white choker: detail

A couple days ago, the weather was awful, strong winds, threatening rain, high humidity, bad for health but good for spectacular pictures.

Sunset above Lesbos

If you liked my choker, I have similar ones on my LoveLea fb page. The link is in the left column.

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