In and among the various things I've been making before War this year was something in which to store my SCA "business cards" to give out my contact information to people who squee over the fact that I'm a trained Viking archaeologist. I got the idea from Haandkraft, which I started reading a couple months ago for the sheer awesomeness of the ideas and the motivation to do something with the leather scraps ladymockingbird sent me in exchange for some card-woven trim. I pulled out a couple small pieces of deer leather, and stared long and hard at the source materials in their Birka wallet project (there's a link at the bottom to another Miklagard re-enactor who's done something similar).

I've come to the conclusion that the reproduction they cite is inaccurate. Said reproduction uses two similarly-sized pieces of leather, whereas the original seems to use a single piece for the back of the top and fold it around to make the bottom pocket, with only a smaller second piece for the top pocket. The reproduction also incorporates multiple pockets, and entirely different designs for the decoration from the original; the original doesn't have stitch-holes where the extra pockets ought to be. I opted for two unequally-sized pieces of leather to create my wallet, not least because the piecing let me avoid a small hole in the red leather, of which I used all but a few square cms. I cut a long pointed piece and a much shorter pointed piece, and drove awl-holes through both with a hammer and nail.

Before I stitched it together, I added slits with my teeny little ladies' knife from Ragnar, which smarriveurr sharpened so that it goes through flesh like butter. The original, I think, had strips of metal woven through in groups of three, but I neither have sheet metal laying around nor think I'm sufficiently coordinated not to cut myself with it, so I opted for only a single thong of contrasting-colour leather to decorate it. (Bonus: it vaguely resembles the "bordure gules bezanty" part of my arms) With a single piece of leather, I could thread the thong through with my fingers and didn't need to use an awl.

Stitched together with waxed thread and turned right-side out, I think the shape looks more like the original than the reproduction, and being sized to hold my business cards, I think it'll be a pretty and useful addition to my kit.