ISO The Perfect Belt (the answer)

 

I’m always asked how I got started in leatherworking, and it’s a simple story, with roots in necessity.  I needed a belt. 

After college I started working at a law firm.  I wanted to be a lawyer, or so I thought, and figured I ought to at least try it out before committing to going to law school.  Yeah, possibly the best thing I ever did.  I got a job as a paralegal in a somewhat traditional law firm that actually had a dress code. It included provisions about the length of your skirt, nylons, and the like.  I don’t think they ever measured my skirt length, but I do remember getting a talking to on more than one occasion about not following the dress code.

So if there’s one thing I really hate it’s being told how to dress.  I was determined to find a way to push the outer limits of the dress code without being in violation. I was being defiant in a way I couldn’t get in trouble for.  I probably still had a bit of youthful rebellion left in me (which only drove me to do creatively rebellious things, like paint flames on my car). 

My boyfriends mother had given me a belt from her youth that I loved – it was probably from the 70s or something – but it was falling apart.  It was one of those belts that was multiple pieces of leather stitched together with a stiffener in the middle, and it just wasn’t going to get me through daily wear.  I looked and looked, but every belt I found was cheaply made and boring.  I did a post a while ago on how to choose a leather belt that will last and once you know what to look for, you’re not going to find many belts other than mine that will fit the bill!

In my creative solution finding, I bought a belt strap, some knives, paint, and dye and got to work.  My first belt was a simple black belt with roses (the photo is of a collar in the same pattern) and the second was one I called the Kitty belt, with carved dogwood flowers. I guess it sparked, or renewed, a love affair with leather.  It’s been ten years and I still have those first belts, and they look just as good as the day I made them.

The last few times I’ve done a show people have asked about belts, so this year, I’ll be sure to have some in stock.  Guaranteed to make you smile, and outlast your jeans, think of these belts as heirlooms.  You can pass these belts on to your children (or your son’s girlfriend) and they won’t wear out.

xo

c

Introducing the Musette Bag

Do you know what a musette bag is?  Yeah, neither did I, and if you google search it you really don’t find much that is helpful.  But at the request of my brother-in-law, I carefully examined his well-loved cycling musette bag and created a new one – a little more sophisticated than the canvass bag that they hand out to cyclists during the race, and a little more practical for every-day use.  It did take a bit of convincing, but I got him to let me put a flap on the bag, rather than leaving it open like a traditional musette (wouldn’t want your things to fall out, would you?).  He chose the Nice pattern with a wood grain and heart, and a simple snap closure.  So, new to the Moxie and Oliver made-to-order catalog is the Nice Musette Bag in two sizes – the large is the size of an original musette (about 11x14), and the medium is sized to fit an ipad (about 9x12). 

Oh, yeah, and I loved the design so much that I decided to make a second one – the Owl in the Woods Musette.  Also available in two sizes.

Enjoy!

xo

c

Real or Fake?

No, I’m not talking about the collection of Betsey Johnson dresses I bought on Ebay before finally ending up getting a real one (I had to send back two fakes, and am still awaiting a refund on one of them), I’m talking about leather.

One of the main reasons I started making leather goods initially was that I kept burning through synthetic/vinyl bags.  I was going through one vinyl messenger bag approximately every six months, and they weren’t cheap!  When you wear a hole in vinyl, there isn’t much you can do about it either, other than throw the bag away.  And every time I did it, I thought – LANDFILL!!!  So I built myself a leather messenger bag, and almost seven years later, it is still in one very happy piece.

The Apartment Therapy Blog actually does a pretty good pro/con list of leather and pleather/pvc/vinyl.  I’ve always felt like the lists were pretty biased against leather since it is an animal byproduct, and that my list might be slanted in the other direction. With a little inspiration and a push from Apartment Therapy, here’s the pro/con list as I see it:

Benefits of Leather:

1.  Animal byproduct – cow leather comes from cows that are used for meat, and are not slaughtered specifically for their meat.  The cattle industry uses a remarkable percentage of the cow (I’ve heard numbers up to 95% but haven’t been able to verify it) for various purposes.

2. Current vegetable tanning techniques are less environmentally impactful than previous chemical tanning methods.

3.  Leather is durable and can easily last 50 to 100 years or more, if well cared for.  Not easily torn or punctured, as synthetics can be.

4.  Leather can be re-dyed a different color if desired, or the color can be touched up when it fades.

5.  Leather develops a “patina” over time, and breaks in (think of an old baseball glove or a leather jacket) and will become more comfortable as it ages.

6. Breathable, and less “sticky” when hot than leather. 

7.  Generally hypo-allergenic.

 

Benefits of Synthetics:

1. Vegan friendly – not an animal byproduct.

2.  Can be any color or pattern that you desire.

3.  Easily cleaned and maintained – doesn’t require oiling or conditioning

4.  Won’t crack or fade over time.

 

Did I miss anything?  Let me know!  And if you have comments on the above list, feel free to leave them.  For now, I’ll leave you with two chairs, one old leather, and one old vinyl:

I love the way the leather chair is worn, and how it has aged over time.  You can almost see someone sitting in it right now…  and it looks like it is for sale, so maybe that someone will be me!

Off to the studio…

Caitlin

Built to last

Wintergrass got me thinking about the durability of leather again this year. Last year, a guy named Arthur brought me two pieces. First, he came up to my booth with a guitar strap that a friend of his made him in the 1970s. Though the guitar strap probably didn't look just the same as the day he got it (apparently it started out a deep red/burgundy) it was clearly nowhere near giving up. He asked me to make him a guitar strap, the same as the one he had, but new. I looked at it, and said okay.

Then he came back with a belt. It was a brown crackly sort of color. Apparently it had started out black. The belt was also from the 1970's, and had clearly gotten a lot of use since. I agreed to make a belt as well.

The guitar strap was a little harder than I anticipated. It was two sections of what is called a "magic braid" where you take a strip of leather and slice the middle. The ends stay connected, then you weave the strips in and out of each other to form a braid. I remember recruiting my husband when I was trying to figure it out. It took weeks before the mathematical part of my brain kicked back in and I finally got it, and could do it consistently. Anyway, here is the result:


I did dye the leather a darker color after this, but for some strange reason didn't photograph it. Must have been pregnancy brain kicking in. Anyway, he came back with the strap this year and it still looks great. Seeing pieces out of the same materials that I use that have lasted generations already, with so little signs of wear, just makes me happy. My philosophy has always been to buy it once, buy it for life. Yeah I know someone has a slogan similar to that (Kohler? I can't remember) but what I mean is basically that it makes more sense, from an economic, environment, etc., standpoint to buy the thing you really want, that is good quality, and built to last, the first time, rather than compromising on your initial purchase when it will just result in a) you breaking down and buying the other thing later, or b) the thing that you bought breaking down and needing to be replaced. After all, part of the reason that I started making leather goods in the first place was that I burned through three vinyl bags in one year! And since the big hole in them couldn't be repaired, off to the dump they went.

This past month, the first messenger bag I made for myself turned four:


and she's still going strong. Looks as great as ever - made the daily commute with me on the bus for years, now doubles as a smaller diaper bag for shorter outings. No worse for wear, either. Someone said recently that the bag just looks better with age - it develops a patina all it's own. Just think, if I had been buying synthetic messenger bags this entire time I would have gone through 12!

Off to bed, so I can make new iPhone cases in the morning. And yes, I am sure the case will last longer than the phone :)

Moxie