In celebration of Veterans Day weekend, we wanted to honor the vets in our family, and the ones in yours. Fred Soria was the original leather craftsman in our family, who over the years, taught us the leather trade. Fred served in WW2 in the Air force. After completeing his tour in Europe and returning home to the U.S.A. he worked for Dick May Saddlery in Santa Barbara Ca. (see images below of two saddles that Fred Soria hand tooled). They are now on display at the Carriage Museum in Santa Barbara CA. (Circa 1950-1955)

"Fred G. Soria died peacefully in his home in Fort Bragg, Calif., where he lived the last four years of his life. Fred was born and raised in Santa Barbara to Mexican immigrants. He graduated from Santa Barbara High School in 1940 and moved to San Francisco to attend college before being drafted into the armed forces in 1941. Upon completion of U.S. Air Force cadet training, Fred was assigned to Pauling Convalescent Hospital in Pauling, New York as an occupational therapist, where he oversaw the activities of the wounded soldiers, taught Spanish lessons, arts and crafts, and worked as an interpreter. At the time of his discharge on Feb. 14, 1946, he was Chief Occupational Therapist. Fred then returned to Santa Barbara and briefly owned a saddle shop, creating beautiful, hand-carved saddles and other leather goods. Fred was a talented artist and developed a national reputation for his hand-tooled leather saddles and handbags." (exerpt taken from https://www.advocate-news.com/2010/12/29/fred-soria/)

I shot this photo of his personal hand-tooled leather photo journal during the service of his passing in 2012. I had to reconstruct some of the pixels here on the stitching because it was a little deteriorated. But you can see the excellent knife carving technique and a blend of military and traditional oak leaf with a California poppy in the corners, and a few acorns trickled in. This is a great piece. Thanks for your service uncle Fred.

We just announced our Summer schedule of workshop dates.

Class dates and time: 

July 13th, 2019 (6 spots total)

July 20th, 2019 (6 spots total)

2:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Class description: 

We'll be starting out by learning how to make leather bracelets. Some bracelets will have buckles, some will have snaps and others will have button studs. We will learn various cutting, hand stitching and riveting techniques, but mostly we will have a good time in a fun creative environment. All materials will be provided.

More info and sign up page, here.

We've been making lots of these tote bags with zippers lately, but never released them to our web customers. We are proud to release the Zipper Tote Medium for $332. Each one is made by hand, one at a time with a turn around time of 48 hours.

We've got very exciting news! We are announcing a new class called "Tiny Book Making". In this private group class we will focus on constructing handmade small books that can be used for taking notes, sketching ideas, drawing pictures, or scrap booking travel plans in a diary style. 

Our classes focus will be on leather crafting, but we have design each assignment to emphasize interaction between students to encourage team building. You can watch a video of ProCore, a software development company taking over our workshop with their 15 employees - Watch a little video here. Also, plenty of time will be made of exploring in our old world craft shop for socializing. Most groups bring in cheese and meat plats for snacks and wine or soft drinks. 

Corporate team building activities can be scheduled any day of the week, and we can host up to 15 attendees/students at one time. Classes usually last approximately one to three hours. Starting from scratch we will teach each student or to construct a tiny leather book. We will finish each piece with a hand stamped personal touch. Most students choose to punch into their journal or sketch book their initials or last name. 

Some examples of what students have made range from hanging tiny holiday ornamental books, poetry books, sketch books, recipe books, etc. Each student will make at least one of these examples, but most finish around three finished projects per class.  

You choose the date and time. Reach out to us and we will organize a time for your team to come in and take over our workshop location in downtown Santa Barbara. Check out the actual class sign up page, here!