THE

POUNDER

OUR NEXT REGULAR MEETING WILL BE SEPTEMBER 21st

WEBMASTER, JOHANNA SCHROER

PITTPOUNDER GUILD OFFICERS;

VICE PRESIDENT –TERRY MOORE

TREASURER - JOYCE WEDGE

SECRETARY –POOR DRAPER

Annual IFOLG SHOW " The Magic of Leather" sponsored by the Buckeye Leathercrafters of Central Ohio (BLCO)

SEPT 26 – 28, COLUMBUS AIRPORT MARRIOTT, OHIO  Workshops and classes still available!

Greetings Folks,

Well here it is, September already! I hope you had a great summer, even though it seemed to fly by. And as you look at your calendar I hope you have a few dates in September marked: The 21^st will be our next guild meeting and the following weekend, the 26^th-28^th, will be the International Federation Of Leather Guilds Annual Show, to be held at the Columbus Airport Marriott. This years show, "The Magic Of Leather", should be a great one as it is being hosted by those good folks from the Buckeye Leathercrafters Guild. If you are planning on going and would like to car pool and/or talk about room sharing, please give me a call @ 724-816-3901, any day before 7:00 pm.

Just to entice you a little bit about the show, here is the tentative list of mini-workshops that are to be offered:

Chan Geer Making a Check Book Cover

Jim Linnell Tooling a Bald Eagle Feather

Vickie Baker Poinsettia Flower

Bill Gomer Tooling a Dall Ram Head (8 x 10) (Big Horn Sheep)

Jeff Mosby Fine Tune Your Floral Carving

Jeff Swanson Edge Braiding

Jim Linnell Introduction to Leather Carving

Charles Crenshaw Mexican 4 Braid Leather Bourbon Basket-Round or Orval

Dale Grabowski Cell Phone Cases

Jeff White The Science and Art of Leather Flowers

Chan Geer Learn Basket Stamping

George Hurst Arrowhead & Herringbone Basket Stamping

Roz Kaohn How to Carve Feathers

Chan Geer Learn Swivel Knife Control

For more information on the show, including these workshops, just go to the BLCO site.  I do hope you try to make it to the show as these affairs are a great place to learn, be inspired and spend time with some of the nicest people you will ever meet!

To help our guild have a good showing at this years IFOLG show, we need your help. With a number of our officers making major moves this year, it appears that our guild display is temporarily missing. We are confident it will be uncovered before long, but for now we need your handcrafted works of art to put on our display. Unlike the competition, which requires that only items made since the last show be entered, we will happily take any item you have ever made! So PLEASE bring what you can to the September meeting. And if you can’t make it to the show but still want to enter the competition, bring those items with a completed entry form & fees to the meeting as well. Dave Briggs has graciously volunteered to transport your items to the show.

Speaking of our guild display, we are in the beginning phase of redoing our guild sign. We started with a piece of leather, donated by Dave Briggs, cut into the shape of our state, then cut that into pieces roughly following the outline of groups of counties. We ended up with 17 pieces of assorted sized leather. What we are asking is for each member to take a piece or two and carve/tool/paint or whatever it is you do to leather, so that when it is all put back together, our guild sign will reflect the work of it’s members. Just so you know, 6 of the pieces are already gone, so if you are willing to be part of this, please pick up a piece or two at the meeting or give me a call, or drop me an email  and I will get one to you. Thanks!

And while we are asking for your help, lets take a minute and talk about the most important communication tool we have as a guild: our Newsletter. It’s our monthly newsletter that lets you all, and the rest of the world, know what we are working on, what opportunities we have as a guild to promote our craft, what opportunities you have as an individual to help all of our members, where & when we meet and a host of other information. It would be great if everyone were able to get our monthly newsletter via email, but for now that isn’t possible. What we need is someone who is willing to get copies made of the newsletter, put them in envelopes and mail them. Address stickers & stamps will be provided. So even if you are someone who can’t always make it to the meetings, you can still play an important role in all that we do. Will YOU help? Please let me know.

Note from Johanna I try to post the newsletter on the website within a day or so of receiving it by email.  Save the guild postage and read it on the web.  Also, I could use stuff to spruce up the website.  Pictures of you, your work, how you got started doing leatherwork, what your business name is and what you sell, lessons and tutorials etc etc --I need CONTENT to make this interesting for the visitors, and this site gets quite a few.  Google "leather guild" and PPLG is #1.  (Be careful googling anything with leather with small children in the room!)  Please send me anything you have that would make the website a better introduction to your fine guild.  I need your help- I'm in Ohio, 30 miles from Indiana.  Thank you!!  email me please!

PAUL BURNETT CLASS IN ZELIENOPLE, PA

Here is an opportunity to learn from an Al Stohlman Award winner, an accomplished artist and an excellent teacher. Paul is willing to come here and teach an all day class, how to tool & paint a Kestrel, IF there are at least 10 of us willing to take the class. The tentative date is Saturday, October 25^th. The cost of $70 also includes detailed written instructions for the Kestrel, which are better and more explanatory than the Ram instructions from Paul’s last class here. Talk about opportunities to learn from one of today’s Masters!! If you are interested please let me know ASAP. There is a limit of 12 people for the class and you do not need to be a member of this guild to participate. Enrolment will be on a first come first serve basis. We need to know by the end of this month if we have enough people so that all the arrangements can be finalized. So again, please let me know ASAP if you are interested.

So what will we be learning about/working on at our regular meetings this fall? Let’s talk about that at this months meeting. Here are two suggestions: 1) Figure carving & painting. Perhaps a chipmunk? 2) Hand stitching/construction. A "hunting bag"? What would you like to learn? What are you willing to teach???

LOT’S OF WINNERS!

That’s the word from Dave Briggs on all of the pieces that folks brought in and he graciously took the time to enter at the Portage County Fair in Ohio. I believe he ended up with somewhere around 30 entries! That is a terrific effort! Thanks to all of you who got your pieces to Dave. And special thanks to Dave for encouraging all of us to participate, and for all of the time & effort to transport and register each piece.

If Dave has one or more of your pieces you have two options. 1) Pick it up at this months meeting. Or 2) Let us know that we can use it as part of our guild display at this years IFOLG Show, and pick it up at the October meeting. The choice is yours. Just let us know.

LEATHERWORKER.NET

If you haven’t taken the time to check out this site you are missing out on a world of information! Johanna and her staff are running an excellent site, which is being used by very friendly and knowledgeable people from literally all over the world. Getting help and/or showing off your latest work is just a click away. Check it out, then join!

I hope to see you at the meeting.

Your friend,

Christopher