Combat Ready Art

Birthday Knifemaking! Max and his father came to the forge this morning for Max's birthday! Fun time with them!

Daren is back from college for the summer and came to the forge to make Steel Flowers! They're beautiful, and a gift so I can't show them.😊

Fun time with these 3 friends! Matt, Isaac, and AJ were in the forge today for the first time. They all made great Railroad Spike Knives!

Scott was back today and brought his mother to the forge for the first time! She thought she was just coming to make a flower, but Scott had a surprise for her. He has secretly been making a knife for her and was finishing it today. She did great making the steel flower, but go through the photos to see the other photos of him giving her the knife. 🥹

Look at these absolutely gorgeous knives that Stephanie and Neal finished today! I told you to these were going to be ones to watch!

Breanna was back in the forge today! She made a cutlery dragonfly!

Dale and Cathy were back yesterday to start their first Billet Knives! They're doing a great job!

...And we're back! Did I get my overly ambitious To-Do list of organizing and cleaning every inch of the forge and storage areas done? Of course not. A start has been made, but definitely a work in progress. But I did have time for all the unexpected things that happened, so I'm grateful for the break.
Plus I came back to gifts! Boy Scout Troop 12 and Wounded Warrior Project with sent me thank you gifts for their classes this year. I truly love all of them. The metal piece was made by one of the Warriors. They will all get a pride of place in the forge! Thank you!!

And now we roll into summer!

"Learn something new. Make something." I took the last week off as a "vacation" (work-cation, stay-cation). It's a good time to pause before summer starts.
Today was my turn to be the student! Went to Tandy Leather to take their Pauldron class. Caleb was a fantastic teacher for the harness part! I learned so much, and he was just fun to talk to. Elijah was great as always with the shoulder parts, and teaching me how to use the round knife for leather. We ran out of time today, but I'll be back to use their workshop to finish making a couple more pieces and then assembling it all together.
Classes at Tandy Leather are great, you learn a lot and get to use the speciality equipment! They also have workshop time (think of it like open forge). And they're awesome people!