This is cutting it!

The Netherlands is a teeny tiny country, especially compared to the States. It would fit in the state of Idaho five times over. It would take you roughly three hours to drive through the entire country north to south or east to west, yet people consider any drive over an hour as quite the distance. Whenever someone complains about distance, I think of my time in Stanley Idaho with the closest shopping town two hours away. A trip to the capital would take you over three hours, not to mention the major passes, rockfall and snow and ice in the winter to contend with. It makes for a tough breed of people. 

The lack of space or the reverse, a vast expanse,  does something to the minds of people. In the States it creates a kind of let's just live in our car attitude, in the Netherlands it creates a kind of Honey, I shrunk the kids mentality -all ideas of sizes, distances, and measurements are simply proportionally downsized to fit within this watery land. Houses are generally smaller, with my flat being particulary small. With is 45m2 It is bigger than most New York studios, but just as tiny as a tiny hous. So space is a struggle with a hobby that is gradually taking over the place. Every day I come across a like-to-have, no, must-have tool.

One tool any leather worker must have is a cutting mat of sorts. Preferable one that does not dull blades. I started with a simple rubbery one that I soon outgrew. So I moved on to a bigger one that worked for a while.

But my bags got bigger and soon I needed to look for another solution, again. The ideal solution turned out to be a cutting mat the size of my dinner table/desk/cutting table. This mat does what it promised to do; cuts seem to close up, it is easy to clean, it doesn't dull the blade of my knives and most importantly I am not cutting through it into my prized sustainable bamboo table. I bought the three-ply version back in November '21 for Eur 75.00, but they also come in two-ply or five-ply versions. 

Now I only have problem. My bags and hides got bigger still. Fortunately I have enough floor space still where I draw precut my pattern pieces.