How I got started in leatherwork

[leatherworklee]

My brother is 5 years older than I and came home from Junior High school with a flyer for adult education night classes. It offered a class in leather craft. I was 8 or 9 at the time. Our father bought us a set of tools and practice projects. (I still have a cowboy boot shaped keychain that I tooled with my name etc.) I took a couple of semesters of Craft shop in Junior High that included Plastics, clay modeling and Leather. we added a few tools here and there up until about 1965. A lot of life happened and in 1978 we got into the purebred sheep business. My father had given me a personalized belt for christmas in 1967 and it had pretty well worn out by 1988. I needed a new belt and wanted one with sheep on it. A leather shop in Wyoming wanted $90.00 or more depending on the amount of detail involved. I called my brother and asked about our leather tools he did not know where they were ( He found them and gave them to me for christmas about 4 years later. Meanwhile I went to the Tandy store in Idaho Falls Idaho and bought the deluxe "Professional" leathercraft set which included the Pro leatherworkers tool set for $150.00 I believe that now a similar set sells for around 1300 dollars. My wife had been doing craft shows/ sales for several years with her Crocheted animals etc. I really needed a creative outlet and as I can barely write my name on paper I was amazed to find that leather just worked for me. I have collected a lot of books, patterns and tools a lot of which I purchased on ebay. I have a collection of about 40 different swivel knives. Long story but it covers about 50 years.........Lee