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Making Wallets is one of the first things many people who are getting into leather working start with.  Picking the right leather is important.  This guide will help you decide which leather to pick.

Guide to buying the right kind of leather for your craft projects and the best places to buy.  Advantages and drawbacks of each.  Learn more.

Most bags don’t look homemade because of bad leather.

They look homemade because of small, repeated decisions that add up. None of them are dramatic. All of them are avoidable once you know what to look for.

Professional leather bags aren’t defined by perfection. They’re defined by control—of materials, edges, structure, and wear over time.  Read more

This question usually comes after someone tries a familiar technique and gets an unfamiliar result:

• The stamp looks shallow.

• The tooling won’t hold.

• The engraving looks darker, flatter, or fuzzy instead of crisp.

That’s not operator error. It’s the material talking back.

Upholstery leather can be engraved, stamped, and marked—but it will never behave like vegetable-tanned leather. Understanding why lets you choose the right method instead of forcing the wrong one.  Read more

If a bag fails, it rarely fails in the middle.

It fails at the corners.
It fails at the straps.
It fails where weight, motion, and gravity meet.

Upholstery leather makes this more likely because it’s designed to flex and recover. That softness feels great—but without reinforcement, it slowly gives way. Stretch doesn’t happen all at once. It happens quietly, over months of use, until the bag no longer carries itself the way it should.

This post covers how to stop that before it starts. - Read more

What types of leather are best for making wallets?  Lots of choices:  Full or top grain or genuine leather?  Vegetable Tanned or Chrome?  We break it down quickly.  Read more.

At some point, nearly everyone working with upholstery leather asks the same frustrated question:

“Why won’t my edges burnish like real leather?”

They sand.
They wet the edge.
They rub harder.
They try gum tragacanth, beeswax, even spit.

Nothing works.

The problem isn’t your technique. The problem is what upholstery leather actually is—and what burnishing requires.

Handmade leather items are trending and we have put together the top 10 leather items on Etsy for spring 2026.  If you are selling the items you make, this might just be what you need to spark your own creativity!  Read on.

If your upholstery leather pieces look uneven before you ever touch the sewing machine, the problem usually isn’t your stitching, it’s your cutting.

Soft leather magnifies cutting mistakes. A slightly wavy edge turns into a crooked seam, misaligned panels, and a bag that never quite looks “right.” Clean edges start with the right cutting tool, not a steady hand alone.  Read more

When you’re working with leather whether for bags, belts, wallets, or upholstery, knowing the right thickness makes all the difference. The challenge is that leather is measured in different ways: some tanneries use ounces, others use millimeters. If you’re new to leathercraft (or even experienced), converting between the two can feel confusing.

This guide breaks it down into simple terms so you know exactly what you’re working with.

By now, if you’ve been following this series, you’ve probably discovered something important:

Upholstery leather doesn’t fail quietly.

If your needle, thread, or machine setup is wrong, the leather will let you know immediately—skipped stitches, shredded thread, uneven seams, or a machine that sounds like it’s being punished.

This post clears up what actually works on a home sewing machine, and where the hard limits are.

By the time most people reach this stage of working with upholstery leather, frustration has set in.

You’ve chosen the right thickness.
You’ve added a liner or stabilizer.
And yet—while sewing—the leather stretches, ripples, or warps, leaving wavy seams and distorted panels.