It did just take some patience, but when I used it, I had oodles of time. The shavings were so fine I took great care to find the perfect leaf to hold them in to keep from losing them -- I used huge sycamore leaves.

Following Ray Mear's "holly leaf" method seems wise. If I recall right (so don't quote me), didn't he use two holly leafs stacked? The top one was "skeletonized" through natural decomposition. The shavings would be sandwiched between the leaves, using it to shower with sparks?