Elegance Can Be Simple

Often, people come to me asking for advanced techniques, but they haven’t mastered the basics. They want to know how to build a briefcase or install the hardware on a doctor’s bag. When I ask to see their most recent work, it’s clear that they are not yet proficient in the basics. I was (am) the same way. I’m impatient, and I want results for all of my crafts.

I used to share a woodshop with a few woodworkers, and one of them used to call my succession of projects ‘heroic.’ I challenged myself in every project and tried to do more and more complicated designs that I had never done before. I wanted to make a cabinet with no hardware, just glue. Next, no glue but just joinery, then sourcing the lumber from raw boards and milling them to thickness. Each project was more ambitious than the previous. This is not a bad thing, and you should push the boundaries of your skills to improve your craft. This continual reaching should be tempered by practicing your fundamental skills. In leathercrafting, that means sewing a perfect seam, skiving precise thicknesses, and smooth and clean edge finishing. If you can master the details, a simple project can look more elegant than a complicated one.

Take, for instance, these sewing details on a leather cylinder. On a cylinder with a lid are four rings of stitches and one vertical on the piece. The single vertical seam is broken by the split between the lid and the body, and all horizontal seams intersect with it.

You can fudge them like I did on my prototype for a coaster holder. I only have one seam intersection because the coaster holder has no lid and no top horizontal seam. If I had four horizontal seams, they would be similar to this one.

It was a decent prototype, but I wanted to do better and show how improving the details makes a difference. The second iteration is an identical construction to the first but a little bit more refined. Let’s step through some of the differences.

In the first version, the prominent vertical seam has a few issues. First, the top edge doesn’t align. The side component meets at this seam, so when it is not cut parallel, you can really tell. Next, the bottom horizontal stitch spans the side joint, but the stitch length is different and slants inconsistently from the other stitches. There is a tannery clamp mark right on the seam, drawing attention to itself because of the placement.

Lastly, the inside joint was not pulled together well and was cut slightly off. None of these misses are terrible, but you can see how they stack to detract from the piece. Now, let’s see the second version.

In the second version, everything is more put together. The stitches are tidier; the backstitches are now symmetrical, with two at the bottom of the vertical seam and two pairs on opposite sides of the split. The stitches over the split are sized better. The top edge is flatter. The leather texture at this detail area is more interesting and without blemishes.

The inside joint is also tighter, the gap reduced, and the edges more consistent. If you compare the fronts again, the second one has more interesting grain; the stitches are a little neater on its front.

Making thoughtful design choices like how to end the stitch and executing them with skill is critical to finer leather goods. Earlier this week, I opened our new expanded online course, Refining Your Technique. This course teaches you how to improve your fundamental skills and make better projects. Several people asked, “How advanced is this course?” In some ways, it’s very basic. How do you cut leather, how do you skive, how do you sharpen tools? I wouldn’t necessarily call any of these techniques ‘advanced.’ They are essential, they are detailed, and they are efficient and effective. I often use cooking as an analogy; a great steak is no more than meat, salt, pepper, maybe a bit of rosemary, and preparation.

In leatherworking, you can find similar analogies. The leather that I used for the coaster holder isn’t especially nice. In fact, it’s leftover from the box-making class where we needed inexpensive shoulder leather for people to practice on. But you can see how fixing the small details improves the piece overall. Similarly, the application of basic but effective techniques will produce better work. There is a time and place for fancy cuts and intricate designs. Often, though, an elegant piece is simply well-executed.