<<< Back to Home

Narodna Nošnja: National Costumes

This is my dumping ground for anything and everything to do with cool balkan costumes :)

2025-05-26 // Punching Holes; Stainless Belt Plates

From my earlier posts, you've learned a bit about what a ćemer is, so I'm not going to go in to a ridiculous amount of detail here about that. I have a ćemer of my own that I had originally put together in 2022.
The collection of ćemers in my family. My personal ćemer in its original form is on the right. The only one in this picture that I didn't make is my grandfather's, on the left.

When I originally made my and my family's belts, I added a little matrix of standoffs to them in a 4x4-inch square. You can see them if you look closely at the photo above. These are snap bases, and they allow me to create decorative "attachments" that I can hook to the belt with ease and remove very easily too, as long as I make the attachment with its own 4x4-inch snap plate. A great example of what I mean by 'attachments' is my 'Four C plaque', a little decorative shield crest with a Serbian cross on it. You can see it pretty well in this picture of me, where I'm wearing my belt and have a bunch of twtally sick swords.
Wearing my personal ćemer, with a bunch of swords and such stuffed into it. My 'Four C' plaque is on the left-hand side. See it?

And indeed, you can also see in the first picture that I attached things like... So! Cute, cool. It works good. The problem that I run into is that the attachments with heftier objects on them are really only any good if you're more or less standing still. If you try to run with, e.g., a whole-ass knife attached, you're going to find yourself knifeless pretty quickly, because cheap aluminum snaps weren't meant to hang on to an, e.g., whole-ass knife.

So... what to do, then, if I want more interesting attachments? What I decided on was that I wanted to punch holes through my belt and put eyelets in them, so that I could tie stuff onto the belt with string or leather lace. That would make it so that my cool stuff wouldn't fall off of me. I've also been looking for a better way to mount my gigantic-ass gun holster, and this would provide a more stable means than "two-and-a-half-inch-wide strip of leather riveted to the back of the holster".

I ... didn't take any pictures of the process of...
  1. Ripping all of the original stitches
  2. Re-conditioning the leather after three years of besewed-ness
  3. Punching the new holes
  4. Installing all of the new eyelets
Which is shocking. Zero. Like, not one. Less than one picture.

But, that was about the process. I recognizd that just punching the holes straight through both layers wouldn't work, because then I wouldn't be able to maintain the belt in the future. If the layers are riveted together, they'll be damn near impossible to get apart without serious intervention.

So instead, I took the belt apart. I lined up where the holes would go, and punched them in both sides. Then I was able to add the eyelets to both sides, which worked great.

I took the opportunity to condition the living hell out of the leather. Especially where the leather had been bent like at the very top and bottom, it was in dire need of a deep conditioning, which I was happy to give. I sealed it back up with some atom wax afterward, and wrote '2025' in big numerals under the '2022' that was already on the inside.

Sewing it back up was somewhat painful, but distinctly easier than the first time. If you don't have to punch all of the holes, it's a significantly easier process. Here's what the new attachment areas look like. You can see that I don't lose the ability to use my old attachments: the snap bases remained in-place. The new holes are just adjacent to the snap bases!
The new attachment scheme. You can see how the laces come through the eyelets.
The new attachment scheme, view of the back of the belt. You can see how the lace jumps the holes.


Once the belt was back together, I had to decide what my first attachments would be. It was around Easter this year that I decided I wanted to have some cool plates. I was sitting on the porch at my parents' house, and my dad busted out this gorgeous 16ga stainless that my maternal grandmother had in his garage from many years ago as a prize from working at the local stainless steel manufacturing plant before it had closed down. It really gleamed in the sun. He offered to cut me out some 4x4 squares, with holes punched at just the right spots.

Meanwhile, I got to work. In order to get designs worth something, I needed to at least passingly learn how to use inkscape. I found a Serbian church font, 'Miroslav', to use and got to work ( download da font ).

Honestly, inkscape doesn't suck. The hardest part for me is knowing what all of the little icons mean. You have to hover each one individually, and they're very small, especially on linux. No less, it's a very capable piece of software.

The font is only half of the problem, though: I wanted it to be a cute logo in the center and cool text surrounding it, like some kind of Fullmetal Alchemist ripoff. I'm very lucky to have ChatGPT, which was shockingly good at turning my ideas into reality.

A few of the emblems aren't common, so let's add some figures about them individually...
A St. George logo. These are really hard to find, and the ones that were out there weren't really what I was looking for. I had ChatGPT generate several, and picked the one I liked the best.
This loopy pattern is the same as the one I added to my shinguards ( go read my post about those ). I'm gonna go ahead and adopt it as my personal seal :D
This is where the lore gets kinda deep. A friend ( and cousin ) of mine on Facebook has done a ton of geneaological research into the Gvojić family. She found this seal while researching one day...
... so I had ChatGPT turn it into a flat logo. I am very impressed and happy with the results! It's not exactly the same, but boy does it look good.
So once I had some logos, it was just a matter of getting inkscape to cooperate. Turns out it's very easy to use inkscape to make circular text: you just add a circle, some text, and then say "Put on Path" in the "Text" menu at the top with both of them selected.
The results are so sick:
The Serbian cross with circular text.
With the designs done and the squares cut, it was time to find someone who could help me act on them. I knew I wanted them engraved. Luckily, my wife Hannah's friend Liz used to work at a local shop, The Engraver's Edge, which is handily a 3 minute drive from my house. I walked in with some stainless steel squares and a flash drive full of SVGs, and boy did they deliver! They were a little worried about whether the steel could handle it because of its thin-itude, but they came out just fine.
Engraved plates, 1. Cross and my name.
Engraved plates, 2. St. George.
All that was left to do was cut out and polish some 4x4 leather. I left it nude for contrast against the body of the belt, used a little conditioner, and then finished it out with some atom wax. It worked flawlessly :)
Sveti Sava, mounted as an attachment.
The full, finished belt. Click to open in a new tab.

2025-02-23 // Baby-Sized Ćemer

The ćemer is a particular piece of national costume that's very much dear to my heart. It's a large, long leather belt that often has a pocket up front. It has many names -- ćemer is what it's called where my family is from, but it's called a pašnjača among the Vrlikans, and a silav -- after the bensilah, a Turkish implement of similar appearance -- among the eastern Serbs.
A Ćemer which I made for a friend this year.

In my days I've only ever seen one in person that I didn't make, and it belonged to my grandfather. They're rather rare, most especially in the United States. It was actually my inspiration for learning leather working in the first place.
I've made something like five or six of them at this point. I thought it'd be a good idea to make one for my son ( coming soon! ), so I came up with a rough outline of what I thought I wanted.
A basic plan for a baby's ćemer.

It's going to be somewhat different from the others I've made -- it'll be more in the 'bensilah' style, where it has a front strap for holding on to a weapon. Probably a cute little wooden sword. I also want it to be able to hold cute little jingly bells. Off we go.
The first parts cut out.

I've got plenty of veg tan in good shape laying around, so I just got to work. I made it something like 11x5 -- typically, I'd go taller, but he's just going to be a little thing. It's small enough that I can put it on him, but big enough that it'll last him until he's a toddler.
Many folk use a wing divider for adding their edge lines. I've got the pleasure of owning a very heavy industrial drafting compass, given to me by the late Tony Marinković, a close family friend.
Lining is followed by beveling, which removes any excess and makes for a nice clean edge to work with later on when it's time to slick down the fibres.
Preparing the edges of the leather.

Now we prep to dye the leather. The front strap will remain nude and so receives no dye. The main body, though, I'll dye with Fiebing's Dark Brown Pro Dye. Why this one? Good question. It pulls up something fierce. I've gone to the ends of the galaxy to prevent it, too.
I use simple kindergarten foam brushes for laying dye. I'd use the wooly daubers, but they just don't provide the same level of coverage! Either one's pretty cheap, though.
The dye station is just garbage bags and plastic cups, like the overrated high school parties we felt so bad missing out on while we played RuneScape long into the evening.
The setup for laying dye.

Once the dye is laid, I typically like to let it cure for a long time. Overnight will usually do. I dip-dyed the little belt because it was small enough to fit in the solo cup, and it actually wound up needing another coat the next day. That's alright.
Pro dye lays down pretty matte. Whether it's even or not is a trick of the hand ( and maybe the eye ), but it'll all shake out in post anyway.
The dye is laid.
Before I apply any top coat I'll seal the flesh side ( the yucky back ) with a mixture of neatsfoot oil and beeswax. I prepared pucks another time that's about a 50/50 mixture by weight. You can do a double-boil setup on the stove, it works pretty well. I put them in little cupcake tins and popped them in the freezer.
The beeswax keeps it coherent and the neatsfoot oil will help make the leather more pliable. It'll darken up the back. You can apply a coat at a time, then melt it in with a hairdrier. It does very well, and the results speak for themselves.
Before and after sealing with wax and oil.

Next, we do a top coat. The recipe is the same for both the nude parts and for the dyed. We start out with a leather conditioner ( just a Lexol will do ) to get some moisture into the grain side. Once that's dry, we can optionally add an oil -- mink or neatsfoot -- if it's not feeling flexible yet ( hard to believe ). We finally buff in carnauba creme and let it stand for a while. This helps to even out the dye coat.
While that's enough to get the leather hydrated, it's not enough to seal it. For that we add two coats of atom wax and blast it with the automatic buffer. Oh, the automatic buffer. It gives us an incredible shine, and a waxy protective coat. The shine is beautiful and glossy!
After the leather is coated and sealed.

I come up with a quick belt buckle. The buckle itself is made out of stainless steel ( good for longevity, eh ). I made the keeper out of some veg tan, stapled together with an eyelet and some glue. We make two of these.
The belt buckle.

While we're getting the attachments together, we can prep the belt strap. Instead of making a whole new belt every time he puts on another five pounds, I can just make a quick new strap. This first one has 12 usable inches.
Getting our belt strap together.

We attach the belt buckle to the main body using rivets and burrs. I attach it lightly at first so that I can make sure that I've got it square off the edge.
The rivet and burr tool has two parts -- an open hole for pushing the washer down around the shaft of the rivet, and a dish for flattening the rivet. Before using the dished side, we use nippers to cut down the shaft of the rivet. Then we can smush the remaining rivet over, preventing the washer from raising above the newly peened edge.
This rivet will outlive us all.
Riveting the belt buckle to the body of the belt.

The front strap requires a little decoration. We add a little uhh... circle? That's decorative. Traditionally, ćemers have rivets and eyelets, so we'll do some of those, too. Eyelet tools are simple to use! Or are they? I just learned you're supposed to put the 'face' of it downward, against the tool, and the striker fits inside the butt. Weird.
Decorating the front strap..

Now we're on the home stretch. We use our weaver forks to punch holes for sewing. Some dewds just use a stitching pony and an awl. I like to punch ahead of time. Different strokes. I'm not making money, so time isn't exactly of the essence, here.
Getting the belt ready to sew.
I don't use a stitching pony -- Corter Leather on YouTube teaches a method where you sort of do a 'leap frog'. It's plenty tight for my purposes. We sew the front strap onto the front body piece first. Then we sew the body onto the back! Dodge the straps. It came out a little bound because there was an off-by-one in the top left with the holes, but nothing a little brute force can't fix :)
This is ~ technically ~ the last step.
Sewing in-progress and complete.
Now I mentioned I wanted to add some bells. I'd ordered some from the internet and cleaned them up a touch... now when he runs around the house, I'll hear him coming!
Adding bells. Cute!
That's about it! This was a very cute project. It took about a weekend. I can't wait to make him wear it. Haw haw! He'll be so cute.

2024-07-13 // Shin Guards?

Srpskohrvatski English
U Vrlici, oni imaju deo nošnje što se zove 'kostobrane za potkolenice'. Oni nose Vrlične kostobrane oko Uskrsu dok oni vežbaju običaj 'Čuvanje Hristovog groba'. U ovim slicama, ti možeš da vidiš Vrlični muškarci u nošni, na nogama nose svoje kostobrane. Nedavno ja sam našao sliku muškarca koji je nosio nošnju sa Korduna. Na njegovim čakširama, vidiš šaru petlje. Ja sam želio da napravim kostobrane sa ovom šarom, i tako ja bih imao kostobrane 'sa Korduna'...! Ja sam napravio moje kostobrane od sintetičkog filca, kože, i pamuka. Mislim da prave kostobrane su izrađene od vune, ali teško ja da nađem vunu ovđe. Ja sam kupio kožu iz lokalne prodavonice, i ja sam postavio boju. I pamuk je... zgodan -- možeš da ga nađeš svugde, ovđe. Posle toga, šio sam sve. Počeo sam u Maj, i ja sam završio u Jul. Ja sam naučio kako da vezem na ovim, i zadovoljan sam sa mojom radom. Crven i Crn je "tema" što mnogo volim: moj prvi pojas je crven i crn, i moje kostobrane takođe. Uskoro, ja ću da napravim pravu, graničarsku kabanicu, i će biti crvenu takođe! Možda treba da napravim pašnjaču sa crnom i crvenom bojama, kao oni imaju tamo... U međuvrijemena, pravim mnoge šajkače, Ličke kape, i šubare. Ja ću da ih prodajem na 'Serb Fest', koji je velika žurka što moja crkva ima u Septembar. Možda mi ćemo da se videmo tamo :) In Vrlika, they have a piece of costume which is called "shin guards". They wear Vrlikan shinguards around Easter while they practice the custom of "Watching Christ's Tomb". In these pictures, you can see Vrlikan men in costume, on their legs they wear their shin guards. Recently I found an image of a man who wore costume from Kordun. On his pants, you see a pattern of a loop. I wanted to make shin guards with this pattern, so that I would have shin guards "from Kordun"...! I made my shin guards from synthetic felt, leather, and cotton. I think that real shin guards are made of 'vuna' ( a special home-made wool ), but it's difficult to find vuna here. I bought the leather from a local shop, and I set the color. And cotton is... handy -- you can find it everywhere, here. After that, I sewed everything. I started in May, and I finished in July. I learned how to embroider on these, and I'm satisfied with my work. Red and black is a "theme" that I like a lot: my first pojas ( a woven, cloth belt ) is red and black, and my shin guards as well. Soon, I'll make a real, border-guard's kabanica ( a long. often red cloak ), and it'll be red as well! Maybe I should make a pašnjača ( a Vrlikan leather belt ) like they have there... In the meantime, I'm making a lot of šajkačas ( _the_ Serbian hat ), Lika caps ( round hats from Lika ), and šubaras ( tall, fluffy hats). I'll sell them at 'Serb Fest', which is a big party that my church has in September. Maybe we'll see each other there :)



<<< Back to Home