From My Sporran Leathercrafting Studio 002

A Hide Never Tells the Whole Story.    

This morning there's no finished sporran on the bench.

Instead, there's a beautifully marked piece of blesbok hide waiting for its future.   

To most people it's simply leather. -With hair on it.   

To me it's a conversation that hasn't happened yet.   

The grain tells me how the hide was affected by years of movement through thornveld and scrubland.    

Small scars hint at where branches caught the buck.

The density and light changes from one part to another. It's colours transform just finger widths apart.   

Every one of those things influences where I cut.   

A pattern can be moved by only a few millimetres and suddenly there’s a different appeal.   

One area may mould beautifully across the face of a sporran, but another might refuse to lie just right.   

You only learn those lessons after many years of cutting leather and hair-on-hide and making the occasional expensive mistake.   

When customers ask why no two Afro-Celtic Sporrans are ever exactly alike, this is one of the reasons.   

Leather isn't manufactured.   

It has lived.   

And every hide carries its own character into the finished sporran.   

That's why I spend more time studying a hide than cutting it.   

Once the knife touches the leather, every decision becomes permanent.   

That first cut is usually the quietest hold-your-breath moment in the studio.