Aaron Aiken

Slowly shifting away from the m.b feed and to using RSS entirely. Also slowing shifting to posting to my site only with MarsEdit on my Mac. Feel like I’m getting closer to the golden age of 2007 :-)

Made a mini leather briefcase.

Pony Express…

Back in my woodworking days I used story sticks to record various notes and markings for projects I hoped to repeat over and over, making small holes with my dividers to save time in the future. I now do the same thing with my leather work, except instead of story sticks I call them Story Straps.

Latest custom leather project shipped out to my customer in the UK 🇬🇧 - a pipe case, complete with a satin lined pipe tobacco pouch and hand-carved matches in their own fancy pouch. Very happy with how everything turned out.

Pro-tip: stop reading/watching the “news” for two-weeks. At the end, if the world is still spinning, go for another few weeks, and another, and another :-)

Just found out I mixed two leather orders, one should have had the buckle the other should have had the strap loop. Will do whatever is necessary to resolve based on what each customer prefers, so no concerns from a customer service perspective, but I loath messing up like this.

Feeling clear about things at the moment, which is nice :-)

Planned to have a workday today but am too tired from the week…rest day it is.

Learned about keyboard haptics in iOS on the latest episode of Cortex. Enabled and I kinda like it…

⚔️ Time to conquer the list.

😑 Way in my head lately. Eager to get through this personal chapter of life.

Ritual ☕️

Together.

Hit a good stride with making these leather oven mitts. Can now make the pair for my client, and get them listed for made-to-order requests.

Throwback to when Mozzie and I would walk more often, usually local nature preserves, state parks, etc. also back when I had a beard (early 2020).

☕️ Whole bean in the hopper.

Leather oven mitt - a first of its kind from my workshop. A few items to address on the next one but otherwise happy with how this initial test turned out!

A train engineer doing his engineering.

Taken while at East Broad Top Railroad last Summer.

Leather cut and laid in a way to resemble tile.

✨ Some nights I have to stay up later...a feeling I just kinda follow to see where it goes.

Zip.

In the past I used to a actively seek solitude. Now it is my life, and so I actively seek the company of others. But, I tend to get lost in my work too easily, losing track of time. Avoiding solitude is something I never thought I’d have to be so intentional about :-)

Summer weather, and the storms that come with it, will be here soon - or so I keep telling myself :-)

Photo taken 9/11/2019