I decided to pay to go on a weekend course to learn leather craft.
After spending one module on learning how to make a leather shoe in 1st year I wanted to learn more and get my hands back on leather.
Leather craft runs through my family with my great grandma working in the leather factories in Walsall hand stitching purses and leather bags. As I had all of her tools I wanted to know more about what they were and how I could apply them to my own ideas and designs.
The course was run by Tamsin Lilly White and Melissa Taunton two amazing designers who are both self employed and are so passionate about leather craft.
Walking into Melissas studio I was drawn to all her leather pieces hanging up and the immense amount of detail clearly put into making all her woven pieces.
The weekend was split into two techniques, leather working and riveting and hand stitching.
What was good about the whole course was that no big machinery or expensive tools were used, everything could be done with a few simple tools that were all hand used.
On day one we learnt a bit about the different types of leather and got to cut some leather strips with a leather strap cutter. The next step was to bevel the edges, a step which was quite difficult as you had to keep going because the edges would become wavy. We also had to learn how to round the edges of our leather,
Once we had done this we could work on our real piece, I wanted to make a cuff from red crackle leather. This meant I got to learn how to make a hole for my buckle and how to put rivets in to hold the D ring and buckle in place.
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