Traditional portfolio with a modern touch

Yesterday I reported about a great day at Morningside, where I demonstrated leather work for Living History.  This is always a lot of fun: we are on a Florida farm from the 1870s and showing people what it was like then.  Almost everything I do in my leatherwork is very traditional, and many of my tools were used in that era.  I tell the kids about where leather comes from (I can point over to Penny the cow, but sometimes that almost makes them cry…) and that the methods I use were used in the 1870s to make many things for the farm.

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on a project that a friend ordered:  a leather portfolio for a Jr. Legal pad with a braided overlay on the front and place for a pen and business cards.  So far, so good.  The other thing he requested was a functional pocket for his iPhone 4S.  This is always the hard part in demonstrating craft from the 1870s while also trying to get orders done.  I decided not to worry about it, and I explained to people that all of the techniques were what were used at the time, but the functionality was 2012 (including the magnet snaps to hold the phone in and also allow easy removal).

One guy correctly pointed out to me that they could have made something like an iPhone case without an iPhone, but he was also a math graduate student, so it made good sense to him…