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Hello everyone! Nice to meet you all! My name is Kawa! I am 35 yo. My mother is french and my father is kurdish from Iran. I live in France. Currently in Lyon but not for long i think. I was looking for urban emulsion (U now, arts, culture, restaurants, girls, etc) but it seems i cannot stand our western society anymore. So i will maybe go back in the countryside to find a new den where to settle... 😄 Yeah i am half-bear, half-geek, half-cat, half-wolf behind... Not very friendly with al-jabr 🤣). Maybe in Japan! Because it seems we can find some Akiya for very very very cheap prices in some nice places. Considering i will surely never have the opportunity to buy anything in France 'cause of economic failure... I have been doing many things during my life bartending, market gardening, construction work, volunteering in music association/festivals, unemployment, watching at too many youtube channels about geopolitics, DIY, spearfishing, literally anything that could quench my inextinguible thirst of knowledge... I have a clear and strong appetite for craftmanship of all sort. Meticulousness, dedication, learning, savoir-faire, local circuit, local sourcing, etc. My ultimate goal is to learn and be a blacksmith. I am still working toward that even tho it is not easy for many reasons. In a more short-term vision i am starting to gather tools and lessons for starting my leathercraft journey that would be useful for smithing but also for many other things. I wanna make useful items for myself first then maybe for others (belt, wallet, harness, bags, tool wrappers, sheaths, jacket, bags, etc). Maybe start selling at some point. Eventually some nice LARP (& affiliated) stuff. I always liked to spend weeks on a nice costumes. I guess it is my childhood passion for history who speaks there. I have been raised in Tours, Loire Valley. Right in the middle of all these awesome castles... ;D So yeah, i guess i have not a special research for now. I will dig and burry myself into the forum that seem amazing and we will see where it leads me. I guess it would be nice to find some french people around Lyon, Marseille, Salon-de-Provence, Tours that share my interest and maybe that can take me on for some occasional lessons or whatever! >> I can surely take some quick tips, tricks & advices for finding, buying tools & hardware & cheap leather (especially for France locations). if you have some very nice rookie guide to link or some nice youtube channels to recommand, feel free to curate content for me (forum pool looks massive!) I would obviously be very interested in finding an apprenticeship in leathercraft or blacksmithing but the french situation is kinda bad for independant so most of time they simply cannot do it. Also the legal aspect of apprenticeship are often very limitating... Feel free to leave a message there, ask for my contacts: email, discord, instagram, whatever you like!

Hi! I'm totally new to this machine- I usually sew for a sheepskin tannery on the isle of Skye in Scotland using a one thread overlocker, and at home using domestic machines. My workplace is shut indefinitely due to bleedin covid19, but they've given me loan of a Seiko Stw 8b to see if I can make use of it if and when I go back. I've looked at several grainy manuals online for it, and I think I've neeeaarrly got it going... Its been sitting untouched in an office for ages so I've oiled it, changed the needle- I'm worried I've made a mistake somewhere threading it, and also worried the timing might be out maybe- if it was one of my machines at home I would change the needle and rethread.. any advice would be amazing! I've attached pictures of the wonky stitching and my probably wonky threading. Cheers!

fourth piece. I made this for my . it took many late nights to complete. made it so it can be a pack or shoulder bag. now I need to learn how to make adjustable straps, burnish like a pro and of course keep my lines straight. leather is my yoga and I should've started years ago.

Well, I bought my first swivel knife a while ago, stropped the dickens out of it a while later, and finally got around to using it a couple days ago. It was a very educational experience. I played around a bit first, then screwed it into one of Tandy's swivel knife holding border tool jigs. I learned a lot of ways real quick how to not effectively use that jig. I also learned that my hand coordination is still nowhere near where I hoped it would be. I guess the most pressing question I have is why the sides of every cut are such a mess. I can blame everything else on myself, but I wouldn't know how to tear up the edges like that even if I wanted to. My best guesses are that it's because 1: I did a simple casing job, satisfactory for stamping, but not so much for cutting, or 2: because three years ago I bought the cheapest cut of leather I could find, and it's been sitting in the chaotic climate of my apartment (that wasn't sarcasm) ever since. I very much suspect this is a familiar sight to most of you. Is one of my reasons right, or is it something else? How is it to be overcome? Or have I just set my knife expectations too high, and this only seems new because I haven't looked closely at other people's cuts?