Neck Bags

[Crewdawg445]

Mainly they were for medicines and herbs.

I have a ton, I mainly use them for, well my dried leaves for teas and tabbaco.

I also use one specifically for tabbaco thats used as an offering on the family drum before drumming.

Can't ever have to many!

 

[Crewdawg445]

Okay I'll admit... teal blue just isn't my color!

 

[Silky921]

Crew, was that teal blue a popular color for the old timers back then?

 

[KLWeaver]

hahah the ladies were saying it was "Tiffany's" blue, but I only had like a million other colors!

 

[Twisted_1in66]

You know, chrome-tanned leather comes out of the vat looking very similar to that color of blue. They dye it to other colors after the chrome-tanning.

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:
Dan

 

[Artificer]

How about a period gun to accessorize that blue neck pouch? Have to admit I was really taken aback when I first found out about these guns.
http://claysmithguns.com/Blue_Trade_Gun.htm

Gus

 

[KLWeaver]

That is super cool. I would definitely rock a fun gun like that!

 

[KLWeaver]

Do you have a diagram or link to something like that? Are you saying to use 3 pieces of leather instead of two?

 

[Billnpatti]

Holy cow!!! Those blue painted rifles may be HC but, to my eye, they are the ugliest thing I have seen since I tracked cat c**p on the new carpet. :cursing: Lordy mercy, they are ugly!!!

 

[Artificer]

Holy cow!!! Those blue painted rifles may be HC but, to my eye, they are the ugliest thing I have seen since I tracked cat c**p on the new carpet. :cursing: Lordy mercy, they are ugly!!!

That's why I noted: "Have to admit I was really taken aback when I first found out about these guns."

I can only imagine these guns were painted that way to impress the Native Americans, for whom, they were originally intended.

Gus

P.S. And no, they are not something that I would ever like. I'd be stripping that paint off within minutes if I ever got one. :haha:

 

[tenngun]

Blue is a hard to get natural paint and dyes. I don't think woad is native to America. Red and yellow pretty easy. Much early beadwork was blue and white, with dyed moose hair or quill work in other colors. That bright blue had to be very pretty to native eyes.
Also look at Tudor and Stuart England, it was very colorful. Well up till Victorian times fine woods made in to fine furniture was covered up with paint.
Some of the wheel lock fine rifles were so covered with ivory and metal inlays that the fine wood underneath was almost invisible.
Taste was a lot different then. A photo of fine clothing on the Townsend web site shows one of the boys in lace covered and pink clothing, stuff that looks effeminate today. It can be hard to get past our modern taste to get to the real thing from them. How many of us worked hard on builds to get the brown right on the barrel, when most guns then were not brown???

 

[BrownBear]

Come to think of it, my grandpap had the first neck bag I saw in use back in the mid-1950's.

He was a heavy equipment operator, and he kept losing his bag of Bull Durham from his pockets. Money was dear, and he hated the waste even more than going all day without one of his "taylor mades."

He tied an old shoe string to the draw string on the bag, put the rolling papers in the bag with the tobacco, then hung it over his neck for the day. Another side of that, he didn't spill the bag or drop it while rolling cigs on a bouncing machine.

I got to ride on a road grader with him several times, and watched the show every time he rolled his own. Only man I ever saw who could do it one-handed and without gummed papers.

I was fascinated, but Momma would have no part of a 5-year old smoking. So we compromised and I used his cast off Bull Durham sacks to carry BB's. On a shoestring around my neck, of course.

Soooo, my conclusion is neck bags are practical for things you want handy, but tied down.

Oh yeah, I roll my own to this day. And I've tried for years to do it one handed. Must not have picked up that particular gene from the gene pool, because my efforts are most certainly a waste of good tobacco!!!!! :rotf:

 

[Billnpatti]

Yep, rolling your own one handed is quite a trick. I had a great uncle who had lost his left arm just above his elbow. He made a living as a paper hanger. Yep, a one armed paper hanger. He rolled his own cigarettes by putting the paper in a crease in his left sleeve. He would fill it with Bull Durham and then roll it, lick it and light it. It was a puzzle to me how he could do it so quickly but he did. But he also hung paper one handed using his left stump just to hold it in place long enough to start smoothing it out. It's amazing what you can do when you have to.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

Do you have a diagram or link to something like that? Are you saying to use 3 pieces of leather instead of two?

Yes. The third piece of leather is the one that you will cut into fringe after sewing it in.

Basically you are putting 3 pieces of leather one on top of the other (3 layers deep). The middle piece is narrower than the other two so that when you sew it, you will only be sewing the bottom of it to the other two. Then you sew around the edges leaving the top open. After sewing them together, turn the bag inside out. You will now have a bag with no visible stitching and with a piece of leather hanging out the bottom that you can cut into a fringe.

Use of leather like that is called "sewing in a welt", we're just leaving it extra long so you can fringe it. Welts are commonly used on knife sheaths. The extra piece of leather is sewn into a knife sheath along the blade area so the blade of the knife is resting on a piece of leather and not accidentally cutting the stitches when you pull it out or put it back in. It's also a common and very durable way to sew leather garments together although those seams are trimmed closely.

Does that help??

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:
Dan

 

[Black Hand]

...was that teal blue a popular color for the old timers back then?

No - Natural leather (Braintan primarily) predominated. The bags may have been embellished with beads, quillwork or natural pigments (Red would be the most likely color).

 

[Crewdawg445]

I'll throw up a picture of my brain tanned/ quill worked medicine bag in a few for reference.