Viking/Amazon Bracers

I've had a design inspired by Viking and Amazon elements in mind for awhile now for a pair of women's bracers.  Fortuitously, I stumbled upon a rabbit pelt at Hobby Lobby recently and this is the end result:

For materials, I chose a rich brown leather and gray and brown fur.  Lengthwise I measured enough fur for each bracer to fully wrap the piece around my wrist with a very slight overlap.  The width would depend on how long you want the bracers to be- I wanted a fairly short style.  This was my first project cutting fur and it was a lot messier than I expected!  I also discovered that the cut edges don't have the same primitive look as the natural edges- this required extra fluffing.  In order to allow for the overlap of the leather and account for the additional bulk of the fur, the leather strips are much longer than what I typically use for a bracelet.  Altogether, the leather was long enough to wrap around my bare wrist twice. 

Other supplies needed included scissors, a leather punch, rivet setting tools, leather cement, two clasp rivets for each bracer (four total) and a double cap rivet for each bracer (two total.)

 

I used a leather punch to create two holes in the end for fastening the bracer and then snipped the end of each hole to accommodate a clasp rivet.  To reinforce this section, I cemented a second piece of leather to the back of the strip and attached a double cap rivet for both durability and aesthetics (I prefer the three pieces of metal on the end product over two.)

 

 As you can see below, I cut the tapered end of the leather rather roughly to give the final product a more rustic appearance.  I wrapped the fur and leather around my wrist until the piece was exactly where I wanted the end product to be and then marked it to align where I would punch the holes for the clasp rivets accordingly.

The final piece is something I could wear with a kilt on a cold Highland morning or perhaps with a more adventurous future project.  I've found that these bracers are so incredibly warm that I really just want to wear them around the house all day!