Things I Make From Leather

My Gentleman's Weekend Leather Holdall. This took forever. Everything I needed to know, I learned from YOU TUBE videos. The handles are stuffed with rope. No sewing machine was involved throughout the creation of this bag.. All hand stitched - by me. My dad said . . . "But I thought you were blind. I mean, how . . ." Here's the deal. I am registered blind. I can see nothing through my left eye. My right eye has very limited vision to the left, right, top and bottom. (Think of a paper cut taped over you eye with a little hole cut in the bottom). That's how I see. I went on the BLIND ARTISTS SOCIETY website a while back. The work - all by blind people, is amazing!

Moulding Leather

Moulded veg tan leather. By Johnny Heath.

Here’s a bunch of stuff I made out of leather.

Whilst watching a documentary about Henry V111, and how he was impatient to see Hampton Court Palace finished. The craftsmen had no time to make many of the intricate carvings commissioned to adorn the palace walls and ceilings. So they made them not of wood or stone, but of moulded leather!

That fact alone sent me into a frenzy of research. Having moulded clay, I had to try moulding leather.

Here are some of my first attempts.

I was surprised that people didn't like my leather faces. They thought they were clever and interesting, but the overall effect was too creapy. My sister said, "So what, you just woke up one morning and thought, 'I know, I'll make a human face out of the skin of a dead animal?' You're weird?"

"You don't like them?"

"I do, but . . . just don't send me one, please."

Hmmm, charming. Still, perhaps she's got a point. 

My first attempt at dying leather. The eyes I bought on line, and the lashes, from the Poundland. Have to admit, I had to get a friend to glue the lashes in. My sight's just not clever enough for such a tiny work.

Leather clock. People think I somehow stretched the leather around a solid form. I didn't. I moulded it. It's hollow. This was my first attempt at stitching leather.

I bought a big piece of super-cheap leather off Ebay, and made this - by hand. Talk about a steep learning curve. I know. I know. The talent!

All leather except the eyes and the birds. I enjoy the leather dying.