Cloth Lined Bags?

[Smokey Plainsman]

Got a nice heart shape style shootin’ pouch I bought at the Fort Charters, Illinois rondy a couple years back. It’s lined with some printed cloth, I’m wondering if that’s historical? Any provenance for pouches so lined with cloth like that? Can’t get pictures, I’m away from the bag at the moment.

Thanks guys,

Smokey

[Cory Joe Stewart]

I have seen originals lined with cloth or perhaps reinforced with cloth. Usually it is an aesthetic choice on the part of the modern maker. That is usually the case with me.

Cory Joe Stewart

[Frank Barker]

Smokey, I have seen shooting pouches that were lined with cloth but they are pretty rare. I have made them lined and unlined. I am with Cory in that they may have been reinforced with cloth to give them some body to what ever material they were made of. I sometimes line ones that I make out of light leather such as buckskin. I find that if you line with a light color of white or off white it reflects the light and you can see it's contents much easier.

Kind Regards
Frank Barker

[Bigmon]

I just started one and lined it with light cotton canvas from a fabric store, as I thought the leather was too flimsy.  MAn is that a mistake!  I am sure it weill still wok, but it is so stiff!
Was not needed.  I used rubber cement and glued it all together, then sewed it inside out.  Then soaked in water long enough to make it pliable and turned it right side out.
But it is going to be a lot stiffer than anyone would ever want it to be.
So if you use a liner, try and keep it on the lighter side.
Best of luck

[Hungry Horse]

I’ve seen maybe a dozen original shooting bags, but only one that wasn’t all leather. The exception was made from a course material that I believe was linen. It had leather reenforced corners, and strap attachment points, but otherwise was cloth, including the strap. The brass  buckle on the strap was a dual pronged shoe buckle.

  Hungry Horse

[hanshi]

The bags I've made were unlined.  But I was gifted a nice leather bag lined with pillow ticking and I like it a lot.  The next bag I make will be lined.  I imagine it was a very individual choice back in the day.

[Huntschool]

I have made lined, unlined and cloth bags.  I personally like lined bags....  just something about them appeals to me, especially the early rectangular style bags.  As to HC, I really think sometimes those early bags were taken from haversacks in design.

I have made a number of bags out of very thin leather (1.00-1.50 mm) and used the cloth (canvas, ticking and heavier linen as well as very light wool) to add some wear strength as well as brighten the interior of the bag. I prefer the light ticking and the light canvas.

JMHO

[Pukka Bundook]

I think Madison Grant has some lined ones in his book.  Pretty sure so.
I lined mine with linen.  I like it and it's held up for 20-odd years and still going strong.

I also lined the divide top in wool, No clue why now!, but it never gets in the way.
I'm pretty sure I rough copied one in Mr. Grant's book.

[Hungry Horse]

I was just going to mention the use of linen as a lining instead of cotton, but Pukka stole my fire. This is another place to use linen napkins from the good will store. Cotton rots with age, while linen is much more rot resistant, and the red wine stain only adds to its authenticity.

  Hungry Horse

[thecapgunkid]

Hungry Horse...I was just going to mention the use of linen as a lining instead of cotton,

You can always trust linen and canvas is a good choice because we know both were in predominant use back in the day.

Inasmuch as we have such a small sampling of the population surviving the years, there's a lot of room for conjecture if you have done enough research.  The thirteen stitches to the inchers guys will always be with us ( God bless 'em)  but your main task is to fit in what you are doing with the look and persona you are working with.  I used to love shooting down folks who criticised my cotton shirts until I could whack 'em with the fact that I came from The Newbury Parish ( Brookfield, Ct.,) where those folks had a cotton mill that made shirts for Rangers and an Iron works that made Benedict Arnold's chains.  I stopped that when a Spinner Lady made me linen shirts and weskits, which I will now wear until they rot off.  I don't even know where she is so's I can get replacements.

Anyhoo, keep this in mind;  If you are gonna make a bag that is supposed to look like it came from a Cordwainer or Cobbler, then neat, two needle stitching is the rule of the day because it'll be the finish work that tells all.  As with riflemakers, the craftsmen of today making splendid looking bags are way out in front of their historical counterparts. So work slowly and with a great deal of patience and reference to places like this forum.  Keep your stitching tight and small, and try not to use one of those gynormous rotary hand punches.  Awls are best here.

If you're gonna make a bag that came off the farm, maybe got dragged around by some poor soul who used whatever animal he could get off his farm and then lost everything at, say, Oriskany, then all bets are off.  Just make it the way you want and try to stay away from anything modern that will show up in the finished product.

I tend to line a bag when it is made out of deerskin, for example, and tend to look for leather that is some kind of imperfect second that shows up in Rendezvous rather than off-the-shelf retail.  It looks closer to something from the 18th century as opposed to machine perfect currying.

The glue is the pain in the fanny part, because you have to be especially careful not to let any of it show.   Generally, if glue doesn't have an obnoxious fume about it, the chances are it will not hold permanently.  The best I have found are tacky products from yuppy hobby stores that you smear around with cheap acid brushes or spray on stuff, applied to the back of the leather rather than on the back of the cloth and with the windows open.  Don't count on their bond, but rather on your stitching or tacking.

Stitching is done with two needles ( once in a while on site I will use bristles ) and tacking is done with one needle. The line you craft with either will tell a great deal about the finished character your bag holds.

Lastly, don't worry about PC or HC in lining a bag.   Over time you find that people who stake themselves in the ground passionately over what..."they"...did and didn't have usually just stopped their research at some point.  Let 'em posture, because the final statement on your bag is whether or not it pleases you after your work and learning.

Godspeed and Merry Christmas.

[Smokey Plainsman]

I think Madison Grant has some lined ones in his book.  Pretty sure so.
I lined mine with linen.  I like it and it's held up for 20-odd years and still going strong.

I also lined the divide top in wool, No clue why now!, but it never gets in the way.
I'm pretty sure I rough copied one in Mr. Grant's book.

That is a TOP bag and horn, friend!! Looks so nice, not too gaudy and looks rustic. That horn is absolutely incredible, I LOVE it!!

[Dan Fruth]

Regarding historically correct, this is an amusing story related to me by the late David Dodds. He went to an event that was to be period correct, and was told they would not allow anyone to use modern toilet paper, to which he replied..."I aint going camping with anyone who peeks in to see what I use in the bathroom!"............So cloth lined or not is up to you......My friend Dennis Knight learned his leather skills back in the 70s while he worked in Colonial Williamsburg, and made several lined leather bags.....Of course the price of such items could have been far too high for the average individual, and I think most of the leather used on the frontier was probably deer skin that was bark tanned....Just a guess.......

[JohnnyFM]

Not all leather bags of the period were “double needle stitched”; many were professionally sewn with a back-stitch. A back-stitch gives a bit of flexibility, a nice feature for a bag- especially one that is turned.
A well executed back-stitch looks very similar to the double needle saddle stitch.

[thecapgunkid]

Johnny FM probably has a good point, but stitching names get a little confusing because different craftsmen, then and now, have been known to refer to the same stitch by different names.  It gets really tough with the French and Germans, because they have a different word for everything.  I hear there is a big French and German neighborhood in Europe, but I ain't going there.

One Cordwainer and a bag maker I know referred to back stitching as going all the way down a seam, and then coming back.  My master called this tacking ( he'd often spit in disgust when citing it)

Another craftsman referred to back stitching as something I always assumed was called chain stitching.

If you have only one needle, then chain stitching will give you a nice, even stitch even if using a punch and hammer;





That's the BACKSIDE of a seam I just ran.  Here's the front side;





To do this, take your needle up through hole one.  skip hole two and go back down hole three.  Then come up hole two and go back down hole four.  If you keep the needle on the same side of the loop on your way up, you can create this chain like effect by staying out in front of the next open hole and coming back around to it on the up stitch..  If you don't want that, then use the flip side where the stitching comes out nice and even.

The picture with the black leather shows the back of the stitching, and the picture with the tan leather shows the chain.  Which side you want to show depends on you

The reason I even did this is because I went to Fort William Henry for the umpteenth time and walked by those two dummies on the way in, where one of them is supposed to be a Ranger.  He has this screwy looking bag that has always offended me.  Out of spite, and some Sambucca in cocoa ( or possibly cocoa in Sambucca)  I decided to recreate it.






Yeah, that's paint.  Just like the original.  Eeeeewwwww.  When I got done, I found that the internal pouch placement, lightweight and easy carry worked well on the range.  Now I can't decide whether or not to have the nerve to show up at a trail walk with it.  Probably need to Psych up with Last of The Mohicans.

[Smokey Plainsman]

It’s funny, back then, such flowers and so and and hearts and such were considered manly. Now, not so much!!

[James Rogers]

What Johnny FM mentioned is certainly true of a saddler using a back stitch to sew the body of a bag to be turned. The stitch gives good flex. Capgunkid has shown the back stitch in his pictures  and explanation. I agree the tacking (as in sailboating) stitch Capgun was referring to is not a back stitch. I did this method in my teens when I was trying to emulate saddle stitches by pictures. I do some bags like a saddler by whipping on the welt and then using a back stitch to sew the bag together.
For rustic, homespun bags utilizing cloth or "backwoods" home tanned leather, I prefer to see simple running stitches, unbound edges etc. for a more believable look.

[thecapgunkid]

Smokey Plainsman...It’s funny, back then, such flowers and so and and hearts and such were considered manly. Now, not so much!!

Yup.  That's why I'll never wear this bag unless I am carrying a gun.