Pod People

Isn't it crazy? I didn't blog for a month, and now two entries in one week... but I'm just so excited about my new backpack design that I've gotta share!

The "Pod" is surprisingly roomy while the slim, curvy shape hugs the small of your back -- you barely can tell that you have it on. On this prototype, I paired caramel brown leather with an Italian suede that has chromosome shapes scattered across it (one of my all-time favorites) plus goldtone hardware, from rivets to zippers to a huge ring for those times when you hand-carry your bag.

I loooove this bag, and can see it in so many different color combinations for Spring...

Leatherworks: Redux

I've been working on a fun project this week... creating leather wristlets and cosmetics cases out of the leather tiles from my gallery exhibit Leatherworks: From Form and Function to Fashion, on display at the WKP Kennedy Gallery in North Bay, Ontario in early 2008.

A leather shield/wall hanging was a large part of the exhibit -- pardon the pun, the shield itself was over nine feet tall! -- and, once dismantled, was simply waiting for its reinterpretation into something new and wonderful.

The shield protrayed the Lion Rampant of Scotland, using an applique technique similar to South American mola textile work. I layered pearlescent blue leather with four additional shades of red and blue lambskin and outlined each portion of the design with metallic thread.

Reinterpreted into chic cosmetics bags, each case is a unique part of the shield -- no two are alike!

Featured Artist

There's a mini-interview with me on the following blog, check it out!
www.awleather.blogspot.com

A big thank you to my teammates on that blog, it's great to be a part of the Etsy Leather Team (officially, the Association of Workers in Leather, hence the AWL name as well as wordplay for one of the more common tools of the leather trade). They're a talented bunch of artisans from all four corners of the globe, and we all work with leather in some form, shape or another.

In our team forums, we discuss leather techniques, ask questions, share our frustrations and our joys as well -- we've even swapped leather from one studio to the next, as one artisan's overstock of mushroom-colored suede becomes another artisan's dream project.

If you haven't shopped on Etsy before, now is the time to start. It's an online marketplace for everything handmade, handcrafted, and handsome... you'll love it!

Leather Confetti

I began work on a custom leather jacket. First step seems to be, making a mess.

This is my new leather hole punch, along with some of the zillions of "holes" from making leather eyelets in the new jacket. Each panel of the jacket will be entirely punched by hand, creating a feminine, lacy effect in the leather.

The silk charmeuse lining will be a gorgeous lavender shade, just one tone lighter than the plum leather -- you can see here how the leather was originally embossed to look like ostrich. I'm scattering my eyelets in triangular-shaped groups of three, a nice odd number. (Ever notice how jackets always have either three, five, or seven buttons? There is a DaVinci code for fashion too!)

There's lots of work yet to be done -- the amount of punching is actually bruising my hand, ow ow! -- but I am *so* pleased with the effect.

In the Beginning

We all start somewhere, right?

Today, I began my blog. My audience is few -- alright, only my cats -- but I hope they enjoy it nonetheless. Stop looking out the window, boys, the good stuff's right here.

I completed a new handbag design yesterday, the Solaris. I'd received a shipment of new hardware, including some jumbo gold rings that definitely looked a lot smaller in the catalog than spilled across my lap.

Let me just say, I love hardware... and hardware stores. I'm a sucker for things that clip and clink, that click shut and snap open again. When I was a kid, I used to design earrings from bits of circuit boards and multicolored telephone wires -- none of which clicked or clamped, which would probably explain why I gave up on them so quickly. Little did I know that I just hadn't found the right medium yet.

These jumbo gold rings were begging to be... well, clipped to something, and gold-studded straps became the answer. My original inspiration was a retro brass sunburst mirror, mixed with a dash of "Gladiator" thanks to Jack Whyte's Roman-to-Arthurian-Camelot history series ("A Dream of Eagles") which I've been re-reading lately. Salve, puella!