A Piece of Him to Cherish

I have always maintained that one of the greatest rewards in leather work is when a client comes to us with an cherished article of leather that has some sort of sentimental meaning to it and asks us if we can revamp it into a functional piece of jewelry, accessory or bag - whatever the case may be.

About a week ago, I received an email from a lady, Leslee, and she requested just that. She sent a picture, see below, of two pieces of leather and explained, "It belonged to my husband's father who died when he was very young and I want you to redo it for him as a birthday gift...," Not in our nature to turn down a challenge, John and I readily accepted it.

It arrived in the mail a couple of days later in a tight package. We could tell by the way she packed it, it was revered as something very special. As always we handled it with care.

The craftsmanship was impeccable and I could see why she wanted to resurrect it. The artist paid great attention to detail and I was in awe over it.

As our client further explained, "The leather comes in two pieces. It was from his dad's office blotter edges that he had tooled for him when he was just starting out."

We were committed to this undertaking and respected the delicate condition in which the panels were in. They are very old and if mistreated would break apart.

John and I worked together on this project. We had to measure and re-measure it to gage how much of the pattern we could afford to cut away to work into a 1 1/2 inch wide belt. The process took days of looking and re-assessing until we were both satisfied with our decision of where to cut. Because, once it is cut there is no going back.

We dyed the tooling leather, as close as possible, to the dye color of the antique strips. John undertook the task of hand stitching both pieces to the belt.

We were both thrilled with the outcome and can only wish to be present when Leslee presents the belt to her husband. But for now her reaction to the end product with do.

We welcome you to bring your sentimental articles to us and perhaps we can work together to deliver to similar results.

Thank you for dropping by.

Anne & John

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