sporran questions

[prattw]

The sporran I mostly use is somewhat similar to the Buzz kidder designs, but is a custom job made by my son-in-law. It actually sounds a bit small, except that it's thick. It's made of soft black leather, 7 1/2" wide x 7" tall x 2" thick. The flap is stiffened by a second layer of leather and it closes with a bronze hook and eye arrangement commonly used on pouches made for medieval re-enactors. The one change I'd make is to have it 1/2" taller to accomodate my wallet a bit more loosely.

I find that the key to making a sporran easy to live with is compartmentalization, not of the sporran but of the contents. My sporran wallet is roughly the same size as a checkbook, though thicker; to be exact it's 6 1/2" x 3 1/2" and about 3/4" at it's thickest point when stuffed. It has a change purse on the outside that avoids the loose change hassles, and holds all my plastic, paper money, ids, a small notebook and a SwissCard Lite very handily. It's brown leather and I got it at Kmart.

The other package that makes up my standard load was designed as a belt pouch. It's nylon, roughly 4 1/2" x 3" x 1 1/2" and fits neatly in front of my wallet. It zippers and has internal dividers designed to hold bills, credit cards and such. As I use it, the central open compartment holds an aluminum handled one-hand-opening folding knife with a 3" blade, a small key-ring type led flashlight and a small ziplock baggie holding four or five chewable starch-blockers. The compartments on either side of the center hold some kleenex and emergency suppies further packaged into small ziplock bags: bandaids, a couple of foil packets of antibiotic ointment, a small sewing kit (a piece of pasteboard wound with several colors of thread and a couple of needles thrust through the pasteboard), safety pins, and there's still room for other stuff as I think of it. The loops on the back of the pouch, intended for a belt, hold a ziplock bag containing Splenda sweetener.

My keys are on a split-ring attached to a 1" x 4" heavy leather tab and slide down the left side of the sporran (my left). There's a space about 2" x 2" x 6" on the right side that is assignable as needed. I carry a Leatherman Wave there when on clan tent duty at the Games. I keep a pen clipped to the right side gusset.

With stuff packaged like this, I can pull out the correct package and get at any needed item without fumbling in the sporran, and slide it back into place without having to rearrange the rest of the contents. I actually wind up carrying more in my sporran than I generally do in my pockets.

Will Pratt