A few weeks ago a local handbag and accessory company, Spartina 449, held a warehouse sale here on the island. I was unfamiliar with the company at the time but my mom was very interested in checking it out, so I tagged along. For those of you who haven't heard of Spartina 449 let me fill you in a little bit. The company is named after spartina grass, an essential element of the low-country ecosystem. Their logo, a mermaid, honors the fantasy and charm of coastal life. A portion of the companies profits are donated to the Daufuskie Island Historical Foundation in order to preserve the quiet and natural spirit of the island only a mile off of Hilton Head, only accessible by boat. To continue the coastal low-country motif, Spartina 449 even has a flagship store in Old Town Bluffton (do not visit Hilton Head without a visit to Old Town Bluffton). I work two retail jobs and I swear, half the local women here carry Spartina 449 handbags and wallets. They're gorgeous, high quality, and go above and beyond to embody our way of life down here.
My mom and I ended up going to the second day of the warehouse sale, so the brand new stuff was picked over and much of what was left had small damages that would easily be remedied. I picked up this fantastic linen and leather tote purse for only $40 — full retail would have been approximately $170 — because the leather strap holding the shoulder strap to the body of the purse had broken. I turned to the ladies of Facebook's It's Not A Cooler But... for advice and learned that a shoe repairman would be able to stitch my leather back down for me. A lot of research taught me that the island's only business with the capacity to handle leather was Enzo's Shoe Repair. I've never done business with Enzo's before, so I can't speak to his work, but a timeline of a week and a price tag of $15 seemed too dramatic for an inch of leather. So instead of spending the money I decided to learn a skill. I drove over to Michaels, picked up a leather needle and some waxed thread, and figured it out. Here is what I learned:
Difficulty: Easy
Time to Craft: Varies by size of project
My mom and I ended up going to the second day of the warehouse sale, so the brand new stuff was picked over and much of what was left had small damages that would easily be remedied. I picked up this fantastic linen and leather tote purse for only $40 — full retail would have been approximately $170 — because the leather strap holding the shoulder strap to the body of the purse had broken. I turned to the ladies of Facebook's It's Not A Cooler But... for advice and learned that a shoe repairman would be able to stitch my leather back down for me. A lot of research taught me that the island's only business with the capacity to handle leather was Enzo's Shoe Repair. I've never done business with Enzo's before, so I can't speak to his work, but a timeline of a week and a price tag of $15 seemed too dramatic for an inch of leather. So instead of spending the money I decided to learn a skill. I drove over to Michaels, picked up a leather needle and some waxed thread, and figured it out. Here is what I learned:
Difficulty: Easy
Time to Craft: Varies by size of project
Supplies:
Leather
2 Leather needles
Waxed thread
Sewing awl — I used a regular awl and it worked just fine
E6000
Ruler
Scissors
A plethora of fancy tools exist to stitch and work with leather and if you have them, use them! I wanted to do this in the most basic way possible to show how easy it really can be for average joe to sew their own leather. You could actually probably even skip the awl if you don't have one, but I did have one so I used it.
Leather
2 Leather needles
Waxed thread
Sewing awl — I used a regular awl and it worked just fine
E6000
Ruler
Scissors
A plethora of fancy tools exist to stitch and work with leather and if you have them, use them! I wanted to do this in the most basic way possible to show how easy it really can be for average joe to sew their own leather. You could actually probably even skip the awl if you don't have one, but I did have one so I used it.