Harvest Harmonies and Cold Breeze

This Fall has been a season full of busyness and blessings with family, work, and life. I've been fighting to finish up work on lots of new blades. So almost every day for the past few weeks has been non-stop forge welding of pattern welded steel, and lots of blade grinding.

Here is a brief glimpse at some of what I'm working on:

I've been working on an axe collaboration with my good friend Nathanael Brandt

This axe is a commissioned piece for a client:

And an art piece I recently finished. Some Tolkien inspired Tauremorna Black-Forest Swords:

You can find prints and t-shirts of this piece here:

society6.com/daviddelagardelle/tauremorna-black-forest-swords

Fall is the perfect time to work by the forge. The coming cold winds and crisp clean air spark something in me every year which makes inspiration flow faster, and motivates work at the blazing warm forge better. This season seems to turn typically tiring and stressful work into adventures challenges to be conquered, all while playing with the fire that is giving both warmth and sparking creativity.
The thought of winter looming is in the back of my mind, and strangely adds a joy and urgency to my work, that seems to help more craftsmen than just myself always use their time more wisely during this season.

I visit my good friend and fellow artist/craftsman Shad Peters a lot during every Autumn. Shad crafts gorgeous one of a kind electric guitars by hand, all from locally salvaged antique wood.

I'm working on finishing up a new attic studio-space away from my workshop here at my home a few miles away from my forge, which will be ideal for cleaner hilt and scabbard work not involving forging or grinding. This will be a comfortable space that will be warm and inviting, and make work during the icy winter months much easier and more productive for me. And if you want to get a glimpse of what my attic looks like, simply glance a couple inches to the right or left, as it is the background of this very blog.

The rough blades which will soon be finished in my studio:

 

The coming weeks and months will involve finishing up work on these blades, polishing them and etching their patterns into visibility. I'll then begin the slow but enjoyable process of of crafting their hilts, sheaths, and scabbards.

My beautiful wife and I also have a two and a half week journey planned through Ireland, Scotland, and England to visit friends and familiar sites in late November. So there is lots of work to be done before then...

Erlösung Indiana Evenings & Blood-Bought Brotherhood

"Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a fire?" - C.S. Lewis

Michigan Winds and Mercy-Bound Brotherhood.

Rewinding the clock to revisit an incredible trip I took with friends earlier this year.

Back in the early months of summer a band of blood-bought bladesmithing brothers that I'm apart of descended on the home and workshop of my close friend Nate Runals, in beautiful rural Michigan near Grand Rapids.

Nate and his wife Rosie's home is both a safe haven and a sanctuary in every sense of the words...

Light fills every corner of their beautiful old farm house, Nate's coal forge hums and glows as its bellows blow grey smoke flying. And us raucous and filthy men fill the fields with shouts and hysterical laughing, as we hurl stones, spears, and arrows into the sky and at one another.

Here is a glimpse at the chaos and inspiration that ensued amongst us...

Along with Nate's home and shop, we visited the workshop of Rusty Zylstra, owner and operator of Mercy Supply in Grand Rapids.

www.MercySupply.com

Rusty hand crafts gorgeous top-quality leather and canvas clothing and accessories. Everything he makes is done by hand, and intentionally crafted to durably stand up day-to-day for hard working individuals.

Rusty (left) showing his workspace with blacksmith Nathanael Brandt and his wife Melyn:

Rusty at work crafting a leather rock-sling weapon on the spot:

You can checkout Rusty and his wife Kate's blog at:

www.MercySupply.com/journal/

Morel mushroom hunting:

A gorgeous knife forged by Nate.
Checkout his currently available pieces over on his Etsy page at: 

www.etsy.com/shop/NateRunalsBlacksmith

All of us young, inspired, energized, and constantly learning men with too much Midwest soil, sap, and good Coffee in our veins manage ceaselessly encourage and challenge one another. Building each other up in brotherly boldness, and constantly holding one another to higher standard of goals and aspirations then the world seems to care for.

All trying to find our strength not in ourselves, but in admitting our weaknesses, and relying on true mercy and grace, where true strength and boldness is found.

-

I dont know where the summer has gone? its already September and I'm currently in the midst of a multitude of projects that I cannot wait to finish and share. Many of which are in collaboration with my brothers shown above!

- David