Part one of two: an open morning at a working leather studio, and what I learned before I’d even picked up a needle.
I’ve been getting into leather lately — not just buying it, but wanting to understand it. So when a bit of digging turned up a leathercraft workshop on my doorstep, tucked into an industrial estate a few minutes from the gym I go to most mornings, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found it sooner. Leather4Craft, in Newhaven, was holding an open morning. I booked the first slot.
8am, and they’d forgotten it was open day
That’s not a poke at them — if anything, it’s the whole reason this is worth writing about. Leather4Craft is primarily an online business, a small family-run organisation that doesn’t get many people walking through the door. So when I turned up right after they’d opened, the young lad in the reception was caught off guard. The owner wasn’t even in. But once we started talking, any awkwardness disappeared — he was generous with his time, clearly knew the business inside out, and gave me the kind of tour you don’t get when a business is putting its best foot forward for visitors.
The reception is really just a working space, with bins of scrap leather, desks and computers for admin, and some tools and retail products on the side. Beyond a door was a factory floor I could hear but not see — machinery was already running, somewhere out of sight, less than a minute after opening.
The tour
He walked me through the workshop where they run their hands-on classes, and showed me some of what people make there, including a small lineup of finished glasses cases, sample pieces from the class I’ve now booked myself for November.
That’s really where the actual education started. He pulled out leather used for upholstery. He showed me the lining material used inside the glasses cases — the inner layer you get once a hide has been split. Then he showed me some saffiano: a cross-hatch textured, laminated leather that, in his sample, was noticeably thinner and more supple than I expected. I own a couple of Aspinal bags in saffiano, and stiffness is the one thing I don’t love about mine. Holding this against what I know of those bags was useful — proof that "saffiano" isn’t one fixed material, but a finish that can be executed very differently depending on the leather underneath it.
By the time he’d worked through five or six types, I’d stopped trying to remember them all and just started absorbing the point: there are so many types of leather. Before you even think about colour. I’d assumed (the way you do when you’ve mostly bought finished goods rather than raw material) that the interesting choices start with the colour and dye. They don’t. They start long before that, with the hide, the split, the finish, the weight.
What it sparked
I came in curious about leather in the abstract and left with an actual project. Our dining chairs have seen better days, the seat cushions are worn through, and pulling one apart shows a simple construction: a single piece of material folded over foam and a board, stapled underneath. Simple enough that I think I could tackle it myself, with leather from a place I now know how to source properly rather than guessing online.
Part two — coming in a few weeks
I’d already booked the November glasses case workshop before the visit — today was meant to be a taster, and it did exactly that: gave me enough of a grounding in materials that when I’m actually cutting and stitching my own in a couple of months, I’ll have more of an idea what I’m holding. More on that once it happens.
Leather4Craft: Leather4Craft Ltd, Unit 1 Heatherside Business Park, Norton Road, Newhaven BN9 0BP. Open mornings run monthly, and need a booking.