I suspect that'll be kind of heavy for her at that age - you say "better bow" so I assume she has / is using one now? What weight is it?

Arrow wood can be walnut dyed?! Most excellent!

Might I ask what technique you use? I assume you don't just soak the arrows in a dye-water bath.. or do you?

And raw or boiled linseed oil - or does it matter?

Thank you!

Those of you who craft your own arrows: do you stain or seal the wood? If so, do you use modern materials or traditional European ones?

Anyone got a favorite recipe?

If I recall the last time an Australian person asked for help with local materials sources, the best answer was second hand store.. always something of a hit-or-miss proposition. (Try searching for Valjuen's threads - you might get some good local advice there) I can say my favorite fabric online re...

It's an 18th c. form I believe, but a practical enough one, and $25 seems a fair price to me (although I'm in another country w/different currency and different options). I think you're definitely on the right track looking for a practical tool instead of a junky fake weapon that you'll throw away i...

Yes, welcome!

... so you made it through LOTR at 10? I'm impressed!

We all started small: I remember exploring a lot of elven glens with just a scrap of burlap for a cloak and a painted stick at your age.

Happy trails!

Excellent topic! It might not be a bad idea to do something like this (a different subject each time) every few months, just to refresh our mental images and get back to the texts! Quite refreshing. Ha! You get the next one? :) I wonder how wide the 'few miles broad' really was meant to be. I can i...

re: shepherd's budgets - thank you Taurinor! Gosh that's a lot of work. I have a hard time believing this though from larsdatter - The budget seems to have been used to carry newly-shorn wool (newly-shorn locks can be seen poking out of a shepherd’s budget in Bronzino’s Adoration of the Shepherd...

Ever since Udwin caught me having an overly Peter Jackson’d sense of Bree, I’ve been pondering how the Professor meant us to interpret it. He’s described it in fairly good detail, but it still clearly leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I’d like to revisit then what we do know about Bre...

Very cool! That setup reminds me of the shepherd's budgets I've seen in medieval art: Oh that's fascinating - have you done more research on them? Do you know if they tend to be open at the side, like a snapsack worn sideways? Or on the top? Are there any extant examples you know of? So good to hav...

Happys birthdays!

Oh cool! I'd wondered if it would work across the back like that - neat! (I actually liked yours so much I ditched my original leather snapsack project and started making one like yours instead. Those dimensions are nice and handy!) For those wanting to experiment w/walnut dye on thin leather like g...

Ursus - awesome! I'm looking forward to hearing your results! Greg - thank you! I'd looked into that option late last year. Sadly that product is fit only for hardsided canteens and bottles. As their rep told me - ... we are sorry to disappoint you; however, our pitch becomes more stiff and brittle ...

If memory serves, a 1.5L version was a standard option, but I don't see it on the seller's ebay page now. What I'd do now were I to do it over is arrange to send a nozzle and hanging cord to the factory, and have them do the rest. I looked into doing it myself, but couldn't find - A. traditionally t...

happy birthday! thank you for the wonderful present here!