Leather

Today I want to talk a little bit about one of my favorite things out here. Working with leather.

If you want something that is made out of leather here, you can’t just go into a store and buy everything you need.

First of all, you need a dead animal from which you can get the skin off. Then comes the most important part (after eating the meat of the animal ;-)). Tanning the hide: the process itself already needs a lot of preparation and work: Do you want to keep the fur on or not? Removing the grain and membrane – stretching it – egging or braining it – and then stretching it again until it is soft and pliable – drying it. Now, after a lot of work, the hide is still not resistant to water (that means it will turn to stiff rawhide if it gets wet), so you have to smoke it, which can take quite its time.

Then finally you have one hide that you can use for clothing, bags or something else.

Now, most importantly, you have to know what you want to create out of the leather and how to make it. Every inch that you waste or lose on that hide, feels like a kick in your butt J.

Once you have finished your project, you have a “masterpiece” that exists only once in the world and can’t be replaced by anything else. I personally just finished a bag (that hopefully looks good enough to carry in public ;-)), which took me about two weeks of work. I immediately fell in love with that project and enjoyed every single second of that work. I’m not quite sure what my next project will be, but I’m pretty convinced that it will be as much fun as the bag.

I really hope that whoever reads this finds his interest in leatherwork, because for me it isn’t just crafting. It’s a fun hobby, which has an amazing end-project and it will teach you a lot about your own patience and (from time to time) mistakes. Especially if you only have a needle, string, and one knife as tools :-).