Leather Craft Information

Leather Craft, Leather Work, either amature or professional is an ancient craft which to some extent still uses the basic tools that were in use many ceturies ago. In fact it is one of the oldest crafts known to mankind. One of the artifacts found in early settlements of primitive man are bone needles. At that period the human race were 'Hunter Gatherers' Thread & cloth were not in use at that period of our history. Protection from the eliments was derived from the animals killed for food, the skins were made into clothing. As there was no thread the obvious choice of material to use with the bone needles was gut. Cat Gut to be more acqurate, it's source the stomach sinews (mostly sheep). When we encountered the first Eskimo tribes and the North American Indians they were in effect Late Stone Age people and were producing highly developed clothing using leather and sewing with bone needles.

I taught at a Leather College during my working life and lectured on 'The History of Leather' and I will return to this subject and provide further information as this Blog develops.

I am now a very ancient Master/Designer Craftsman from the Leathergoods Industry, still using Great Grandfathers tools. They say that everyone has a book in them, I have gone a step further than that I am at present writing a series of Craft Instruction Manuals to make these skills available to others before they are lost and while I am still on this planet. The first three are finished and available on my web site for purchase at a moderate cost. They are all written in a simple and straight forward and easy to follow format so that beginners will not find them difficult to follow. To my surprise fellow proffesionals are also purchasing them and raving over the detailed instructions. I set up my site mainly to distribute the manuals (built it myself) about 3 years ago, I added some suppliers, tanners, organisations that I thought might be of interest to my site visitors and like 'Topsy' it just grew with companies requesting to be included. it is now a large site with many categories and plenty or research and reference information as well as provision for the purchase of the craft manuals.

For those interested the site can be found at www.theleatherconnection.com

I will continue on the history and development of leathergoods as this Blog develops but would like to remind all visitors that like our ancient forefathers all animals skins used today are killed for meat and the skins and hides are a by-product of the meat industry if we did not use those skins it would not save those animals. The skins would be burnt or placed in land-fill sites adding to general pollution. Yes there are exceptions with some animals being allowed to be culled which do not enter the food chain, but in general all protected spieces are not used for leathergoods or shoes. They are protected by law and anyone that uses them are getting supplies from poachers (mainly in Africa & South America and made up locally). In North America Trappers are licenced and they along with the Inuit (Eskimos) in the arctic do kill animals for their fur. it is quite possible for ladies to use artificial furs to go about in the winter in our nortern hemiphere. in fact Nylon furs even look better than the originals. Unfortunately for the servere conditions in the arctic regions they are no protection for the extreme conditions that exist. and animal furs are necessary to remain alive. there is another factor the economy of those regions the extreme conditions do not allow the inhabitants to grow crops and unfortunately the amimals of the region provide them with food and clothing even in our modern world. until the rest of use in the World provide the money to support these people with free handouts then they have no option but to carry on the way they have always done throughout the ages.

More Later