Materials & Process

Materials

All items are made with full-grain vegetable tanned leather unless otherwise specified. Since full-grain leather comes from once living creatures, natural scars and blemishes of the animal sometimes show up on the pieces. I find the marks to be absolutely beautiful and they make every piece completely unique. The leather will age, darken, and soften with use, touch, and light exposure. The amazing property of leather is that it will continue to change over time and the look and feel is unique to every owner. All seams are hand-stitched with either waxed nylon or polyester thread for incredible strength and durability.

Process

The best way to describe the building process is old school and low-tech. At this point, I don't own a clicker press, sewing machine, or burnishing machine, so everything is done by hand.

All leather pieces are hand-cut. I make my own hand-drawn patterns on card stock and trace them out on the leather. Some of the products that need to fit certain items (like cards) require a few prototype iterations to adjust for dimensions, aspect ratios, and details in the build processes before being deemed "ready to release". Other items like the clutches are built from concept to completion in a single try as a hold-your-breath-and-hope-for-the-best method.

All stitches are hand-sewn with a saddle stitch (this site has a good explanation of the differences between saddle stitching and machine stitching and why the former is superior to the latter). Every stitching hole is hand-punched. All hardware is hand-set.

I also try to make sure that every stitch, every rivet, and every piece of hardware has a purpose. This means that a lot of consideration goes into every aspect of the build to try to keep the designs as simple and clean as possible.

What does this all mean? It means that each build takes a tremendous amount of time. It also means that these items are built to last and can potentially last an entire lifetime if not more.

Finally, as strange as it sounds, every piece is a labor of love. I choose to make these items because I want to, because I love the design and building process, and because I love that the resulting product is not only beautiful but durable and functional.