Craft a Custom Leather Tote Bag

Make a custom leather tote bag from scratch!

Leather goods have been used by humans as far back as 5,000 BCE when Egyptians crafted sandals, clothes, gloves, buckets, bottles, and burial shrouds. In this dynamic workshop, you’ll use a variety of tools and materials and join the long history of leather craftspeople by creating your very own leather tote bag.

You will select a leather color that fits your unique style and then cut, punch, hammer, twist, and sew your way to a piece that will turn heads everywhere you go. You’ll become familiar with tools such as mallets, anvils, rivets, and our state-of-the-art Sailrite Sewing Machine.

Nothing can top the versatility of a leather tote bag, so if you’re at brunch or running errands around town when an admirer asks, “Where’d you get that bag?” you can proudly say “I made it!”

What You’ll Be Making: A handcrafted leather tote bag approximately 13″x11″x5″

What’s You’ll Be Doing: You will use a variety of common, as well as specialized tools to create your piece. Tools include mallet, hole punch, rivet setter, anvil, and industrial grade sewing machine. During this workshop you’ll be flexing your muscles and handling delicate thread, so prepare for a dynamic and fun time!

Skill Level: Beginner — no previous experience is required.

Important Notes:
It’s our business to bring people together to make things and use tools that most New Yorker’s couldn’t and wouldn’t use in their homes. This is really difficult to do via Zoom. Gathering people in our post-COVID world requires that we take our guests’ safety even more seriously by implementing every possible precaution.

To ensure your safety while at a Craftsman Ave workshop, we’ve implemented the following precautions:

• Small Class Sizes – We’ve always specialized in offering hands-on workshops for small groups of people. In the past, we limited our workshops to 8 guests. For the foreseeable future, we’ll be further limiting our workshops to everyone can be safely distanced from each other.

• Masking - We will be following all applicable regulations regarding masking, including allowing vaccinated guests to attend workshops without a mask.

• Hand Washing/Sanitizing – You’ll find plenty of hand sanitizer dispensers throughout our space.

It’s our goal to err on the side of caution during these challenging times. If you have any questions about our precautions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.