Maria Rincon

 

On This Day Off: Making a leather wallet!

2016-10-24

We're just nearing the end of October and things have been very busy with the pageant. Aside from fittings, dance rehearsals, stage training, and catwalk classes, the 10 contestants and I are preparing for the official MCVP 2016 media press conference that is coming up soon!

So this weekend it was nice to have a little break and I had the chance to try something totally new. I attended a leather workshop class and made my own leather cardholder. Even though I enjoy painting and being crafty, working with leather was something completely new for me.

We started off with a sheet of leather and tools, and the process took around 2.5 hours.

The main steps to making the final product included cutting up the parts of the leather wallet, softening the edges with beeswax and a tool, binding the parts together, and stitching the entire thing. I even had the chance to personalize my cardholder by debossing the letter M (for Maria) on it.

As you can see from the picture, my stitching is slightly crooked (haha). Nevertheless, I am still very happy with my leather cardholder because it was a long and difficult process. In order to make a perfect leather good, you need to be extremely precise and meticulous. I now have much more appreciation for handmade leather goods after this experience. Creating hand-crafted leather goods is truly a form of art.

For this cardholder I used vegetable tanned leather. The cool part about this leather is that with use, it "ages" beautifully (meaning the leather's shade turns darker). Right now my leather cardholder is a nude colour, but with time and use it will turn to a nice shade of deep brown.

Here's a picture of all the kinds of leather found inside the workshop! Overall, doing something out of the ordinary is always fun and rewarding. Shall I try making a handbag next? 

这周末我学了这么做一个皮的小钱包！很好玩但是不是很容易。我终于知道为什么手工做的皮钱包很贵哈哈。

Thanks for reading! Until next time,

Maria 王思思