An Aspiring Craftsman in a Modern Age
I first started leather working about a year ago when I told my girlfriend I would make her a purse. My creative endeavors prior to leather craft, such as woodworking and playing the guitar, never quite panned out. Although my leather work isn’t much to brag about my interest in the craft has only grown as I’ve progressed.
The first day I walked into Tandy Leather Company in Costa Mesa, CA I had no idea what to look for. It smelled like a one big baseball glove and there was no music or even an attempt at ambience. I almost became discouraged looking at all the different hides, dyes and tools. I settled for buying a small cut of leather that was on sale and ordered some cheap tools from Amazon. After accumulating around four total minutes of random online instruction I was eager to start.
My first cut into the leather made me nervous. I was standing in my kitchen holding the razorblade against a ruler. I must have pulled up five times before I just went for it. My eyes were fixed as I pulled the mildly sharp razor through the leather. The sound of cutting through the thick leather made me more nervous. I did not want to ruin my expensive material. When the first cut was done I examined it repeatedly and was pleased with the result . . . onto the second cut.
At first the simplest things took me forever but I was determined to figure it out. Being my first project; the purse I made took me almost a whole month but looked like I slapped it together in 20 minutes. My girlfriend loved it and still uses it even though I’ve had to fix some loose stitching and edges. Since then I’ve made many different things for different people trying to progress each time.
My dad is a shooting instructor for the LAPD. I was so excited when he asked me to make him a holster for work. Spending hours looking up how to make a good leather holster I wanted to prove myself. The last thing I made my dad was probably an arts and crafts project from elementary school and I had to make sure this was distinguishable from something like that. The whole process took me a while.
First I measured the gun and traced a pattern onto cardstock, then I transferred it to the leather and cut it out. After that I punched the stitching holes into the leather and molded the gun so the holster took its shape. To finish it I burnished the edges until they were smooth, dyed the leather and applied a shiny texture. The holster turned out pretty well and my dad uses it at work everyday. Since then I’ve made more things for his coworkers and I get a great amount of satisfaction knowing that people have used my work in the professional world.
One lesson leatherworking has taught me is patience. With all the instant gratification we get from social media, YouTube and Netflix it can be hard to sit down and take an hour to hand-stitch a few inches of leather. Despite the patience required, working on a leather project is soothing and maintains my constant interest. Having complete control of a projects outcome and stepping away from rigid instruction is liberating. I enjoy the feeling of autonomy making an item. I can decide what thickness of leather to use on a wallet or what a strap should look like on a bag. As I have learned and progressed in the craft I realized that I need to take the things that make me happy about it and use those things to guide me into a career.
I probably won’t become rich from leather working , not that I need a ton of money, but i I’m going to have to find a more official job once I graduate and continue to do craft leather on the side. That being said, I can say that allowing myself to learn something new has helped me define what I’m looking for in a career: A creative outlet where I can put my time and effort into a project and make it my own. I now know that I won’t be happy just following orders like a set of instructions from Ikea.
Working with leather is my hobby, and I hope it can be more than that one day. But if nothing serious come from it, I know I can still use the lessons it’s taught me.
