Been Away For Too Long, New Work !

[corter]

Hey guys and gals! I got my start learning from the pages of this forum, and regretfully I've not had the time to post much in the past few years. I find myself with a few minutes to post up some of my new work, so here we go!

Short back story- started leatherwork in college in 2007, started my business (Corter Leather) in 2008, graduated college in 2009 and never looked back. Been enjoying the crazy life of a small business owner/leather smith since.

Here's some full shell cordovan work:

Some fabric lined wallets:

And Bags

and here's my new stuff. I've been redesigning in preparation for relaunching my website in March with a new line of goods. All custom hardware with my logo, heat brands and mostly Horween Chromexcel leather.

Last, a rather interesting commission I got this summer

[Jazznow]

Wow. Beautiful clean designs. Like them very much

[Andrew Chee]

Nice stuff. For your fabric lined wallets, how do you deal with the edges that are between two pieces of leather? I find that if I keep them raw, they will tend to fray a little from use. Do you fold the fabric first?

Andrew

[Greene]

looks like the years have given some great experience the wallets look great. Probably a dumb question, but are you still hand-stitching many pieces?

[corter]

Thanks! Andrew- yes, fold the fabric at the edges and make the fabric piece slightly smaller than the leather shell on the sides and bottom, then glue it down good. That way your leather seams will hang over the fabric, so the fabric will never see daylight on the sides and bottom.

Greene- everything there is hand sewn (besides the fabric tote bag), I don't machine sew. I usually make between 50-100 pieces a week not including belts and bracelets, so needless to say I've gotten pretty quick saddle stitching.

Edited March 1, 2013 by corter

[jayjay]

wallets look great I really like your design. If you don't mind what ounce leather are you using?

[corter]

Depends. Between 2 and 5 for wallets/pockets, usually around 6 or 7 for bags.

[WScott]

This is really great stuff!!

Beautiful wallets, impressed you are hand stitching most things

You gotta tell us the Mitt Romney story that goes with the last pic

[corter]

Thanks!

That's a pretty good story. I got an email about a rush job over the summer, I think it was 25 of each color of those notebook covers in 3 days. I said yea, I can get that done for you with a 25% rush fee, BUT I can waive the fee if you pay cash when you pick them up

So the person says a credit card is cool, the job gets finalized, and then they asked if they could give me a call. I said yea sure, thinking I was about to walk right into one of those micro-managing-customer situations because there was literally nothing else to talk about, it was a pretty simple job.

I pick up and the girl on the phone goes "Yea, I just wanted to let you know that I'm Mitt Romney's personal aid. We need these covers branded with his signature, because he's giving them out as gifts on his Olympic tour of Europe in July." My jaw about dropped to the floor! I'm in Boston, he lives here, and his aid is only a couple years older than me & saw my stuff somewhere online. She wanted to give gifts that were made in the USA and would be useful instead of engraved paperweights they usually give.

So basically he put some Field Notes notebooks in my notebook sleeves and gave them to foreign presidents and leaders. I know the President of Poland and Israeli Prime Minister got one, some Olympic committee folks, but at the time the details of his trip were classified and they couldn't tell me. Then when he got back he went into full time campaign mode, so I never found out exactly who got them. I never got to meet him, but his personal aid did come over a few times and she was pretty cool. My best friend's fiancé worked the Scott Brown campaign so we knew some of the same people. And she had her secret service identifier pin on once, which was super awesome to see.

[Greene]

That'd a great story. Very impressed with the stitching also.

[WScott]

Do you have a website so we can see some of your other work???

I really love the first few wallets, like to see some more

Thanks for sharing the story

Scott

[SteelheadFineGoods]

Looks very good, Corter. I notice a jump in the quality and design of your stuff compared to what I've seen of yours in the past (which was also very good!). Any suggestions for burnishing chromexcel or shell? Keep up the great work. Looking forward to the site relaunch.

[scottk1967]

HMM! What kind off glue?

[chico72]

Very nice work!!

everything looks very clean and simple but the grade of quality seems very high!!

You have a new fan, keep on posting!!

Chico

[Feraud]

Your work looks top notch! I love the wallets.

[corter]

Do you have a website so we can see some of your other work???

I really love the first few wallets, like to see some more

Thanks for sharing the story

Scott

Thanks! www.corterleather.com, new website launching Thursday 3/21. Instagram's @corterleather if you're into that.

Looks very good, Corter. I notice a jump in the quality and design of your stuff compared to what I've seen of yours in the past (which was also very good!). Any suggestions for burnishing chromexcel or shell? Keep up the great work. Looking forward to the site relaunch.

Thanks dude. A lot of it was that I stopped making what other people wanted and started making what I wanted, putting together a cohesive collection. It's going to get super fun later this year, doing lots of new stuff. Burnishing Chromexcel sucks, no way around it- I use a combo of dye/neatsfoot/wax and do it by hand.

HMM! What kind off glue?

Plain old Elmers white glue.

[tbhogstrom]

Hey Corter,

Funny that you posted this very recently. Your stuff is really what got me thinkin about starting in leathercraft.Your designs are simple and clean, and your craftmanship is quality and (in the best way) utilitarian. I feel like I'm finding myself in a very similar spot to where you were in 6 or so years ago; I have an unexplainable drive to design and produce qualitty (leather) products. With that in mind, where did you start? Where did first start selling what you produced?

Thanks for the inspiration,

Hoggy

[strudell]

I'm curious as to what saddle stitch method you use to pump out 10 products a day. I've seen from your blog that you have prepunched holes, do you Dremel them?

Thanks!

[skullandbonessocal74]

I am also a big fan of your work! Thanks for the Mitt story also.

[abn]

... I stopped making what other people wanted and started making what I wanted, putting together a cohesive collection.

Lots of wisdom in these few words. Most leatherworkers spend far too much time on technique, and far too little on brand positioning. Clearly, you're way ahead of the pack not just because of your leather skills, but also your business acumen.

[WScott]

Best wishes on the launch of the new website

I perused the old one and like what I saw. Very impressed with your focus on local supplies, handmade and quality goods

Cool stuff

[corter]

Hey Corter,

Funny that you posted this very recently. Your stuff is really what got me thinkin about starting in leathercraft.Your designs are simple and clean, and your craftmanship is quality and (in the best way) utilitarian. I feel like I'm finding myself in a very similar spot to where you were in 6 or so years ago; I have an unexplainable drive to design and produce qualitty (leather) products. With that in mind, where did you start? Where did first start selling what you produced?

Thanks for the inspiration,

Hoggy

Thanks dude! I started right here, on the pages of this forum. Learned everything from reading, then did it myself. I started selling my stuff on another forum relating to Japanese fashion- Japanese stores didn't sell to the US yet, so I made similar stuff and sold it here to kids my age (in college at the time). It kind of grew from there. The only advice I can give you is to admire other people's work, but only copy the work ethic. Be original in your design. Study the market, find holes, then fill them. It's much easier selling a product that no one else makes than convincing someone to buy your version of a product lots of people make. And it's nearly impossible to scale a handmade leather goods company- it took me 5 years, and I'm barely able to produce what I need to.

I'm curious as to what saddle stitch method you use to pump out 10 products a day. I've seen from your blog that you have prepunched holes, do you Dremel them?

Thanks!

Two needle, no stitching pony, no clue what it's called. I've pretty much been at this 50 hours a week for the past 5 years, so I sew without looking these days and it goes pretty fast. The prepunched you see on the blog is the new production method, I have cutting dies made now because my hands started giving me troubles (at 25....ugh!) and I didn't want to machine sew for obvious reasons. However, when I was hand cutting everything, I memorized my shapes and did not use templates- they waste time. Learn how to cut a straight line without a ruler, learn how to cut a curve without a template or tracing, and you'll fly through work. I just use a 4 prong diamond fork from Tandy to punch, and I was at 25-30 pieces a day before I switched to die cuts. Now, needless to say, it's higher than that.

Lots of wisdom in these few words. Most leatherworkers spend far too much time on technique, and far too little on brand positioning. Clearly, you're way ahead of the pack not just because of your leather skills, but also your business acumen.

Thanks man! I'm fortunate enough to like simple stuff I think, it took me 5 years to even design a proper logo for the brand It is true though, you hit a much broader market without floral patterns in everything. Though I do like traditional leatherwork a whole bunch!

Edited March 29, 2013 by corter

[shinelightshine]

I love this. A really great approach to a beautiful minimal aesthetic and high quality. This is right up my alley.

[Aamber]

Thanks! Andrew- yes, fold the fabric at the edges and make the fabric piece slightly smaller than the leather shell on the sides and bottom, then glue it down good. That way your leather seams will hang over the fabric, so the fabric will never see daylight on the sides and bottom.

Greene- everything there is hand sewn (besides the fabric tote bag), I don't machine sew. I usually make between 50-100 pieces a week not including belts and bracelets, so needless to say I've gotten pretty quick saddle stitching.

that's admirable! hand stitching is so much better than the machine one! warmer and full of life!

[JosiahRs]

Corter, I have much respect for you! Having a successful brand at a young age is admirable! I only hope that i can make this obsession in to a business at some point!