AndrinaBoutique

Posted : 19 July 2022

First a little mention about the leather itself . The leather used for hand fabrication is known as veg tan its animal hide that has been processed using tannins from plants . The tanning process is the key element that stops the hide rotting and gives it the qualities of leather as we know it .

Vegetable tannins are the same compounds that you find in red wine . Mind you I have never chewed a piece of leather so I can not comment like this one has a lovely cheeky bouquet of Cherries .

One very important quality of Vegetable tanned leather is that is can be dyed and easy to work with. In fashion leather has received some bad press but its essentially a bye product of the meat industry and in terms of environmental pollution its better than faux leather because its totally biodegradable. It does not contain the more debatable environmental pollutant of Chromium which is in most of leather used commercially

In the image seen I have taken photos at each stage of fabrication for a triangle coin change purse The first stage is to cut out the shape required and I have cut from circa 2mm cow hide .

You can not see it but on the reverse I have slightly gouged out two lines where I expect the folds to be; this is to help the folding .

In the next stage I have dampened the leather this helps to distribute the leather dye; since the leather is damp I also at this stage press onto the leather a die . The die debosses into the leather an outline of Southend To get the die produced was a job in itself first I had to take a photograph then process it .

The next stage I punched out holes and fitted press studs Then using a 3 tooth prong holes were punched in readiness for stitching using leather thong.

Couple of comments you can get cheaper items made overseas probably in a sweat shop. Quite a bit of time and effort goes into my leather fabricated items so I think the price is reasonable . The other thing to mention is that because items are made by hand there are always slight variations .

For instance I put the die in about the right place by eye; this means that its in a slightly different place each time and angle .

Its a bit of a half glass full question Do you see it as slightly shoddy and uneven or delightfully different produced by a local artisan Which ever way you see it you can't be wrong .

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