Hello! My name is Tim and I love leather working. I first got into leather craft in early 2020. I was on paternity leave from work following the birth of my daughter and then the pandemic struck. It became immediately apparent that I had no hobby that I was truly interested in.
I’ve always kind of been into cool everyday carry gadgets like knives, wallets, etc. so I started looking at that kind of stuff on Instagram. I quickly found myself going down the rabbit hole of leather boots, selvedge jeans, cool knives, and handmade leather goods.
I began speaking to a local leather worker and he started pushing me to give leather working a shot. He helped me pick out a starter kit off of Amazon and a mystery pack of leather to get me going.
I started making super basic products and created Black Flag Leather Goods. As I continued making more and more leather projects, my mentor would look at them and help me correct where I went wrong. He even spent a couple hours video chatting with me, teaching me how to saddle stitch one-on-one.
Needless to say, having him show me the ropes was invaluable. As I progressed through my leather working journey, I started getting questions from people asking the same questions I did when I was getting interested in leather craft.
I realized that I enjoyed helping beginner leather workers almost as much as I liked the craft itself. I started up a YouTube channel where I began making pretty basic how to videos. That channel started gaining traction faster than I could have ever imagined. I decided to close my books and focus on leather work education, rather than selling products.
HowToLeatherWork.com is the next phase of teaching new leather workers. My goal is to essentially build an online course to help answer beginners’ questions and get the next generation of leather workers up and running.