One of my favourite parts of leatherworking, is dying up all our different products. Some of our products are made using pre-dyed leather. This is dyed in the tannery to our specifications and then sent to our workshop to be made into various products such as belts and hats.
However, a lot of our belts and smaller goods such as keyrings, wristbands and pouches, are dyed by hand by us here in our workshop.
The dyes we use come in a variety of wonderful colours, and can be applied directly to the leather for a nice bright finish, or layered up to produce a more subtle pattern.
My favourite colours to use are ones that bring out the natural markings in the leather itself. Varying shades of brown; maroon, burgundy, russet, are good for this.
But then on other days, the brighter colours call out, and suddenly everything is dyed in a rainbow pattern!
The best thing is, no two items come out the same, each one has slightly different colours, each piece of leather has slightly different natural markings. That's the beauty of working with leather as a material.
