Expanding My Skill Set - Leather Bag Repair Course

Over the past year I have been doing more repair work. At the moment it has been focussed on straps and belts but I want to be able to work across a wider range of leather accessories. To be able to offer more services I need to increase my knowledge of different repair or restoration work so in November 2021 I researched repair courses to learn more.

After a google search and looking at what was on offer, I signed up to the Handbag Repair Training Course run by Judy Bass from LTT Leathercare in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

The course was 4 days which happened last month and I learnt a lot. Judy who has been a leather technician for over 20 years and is also owner of The Handbag Spa too.  She has a tonne of knowledge which was great to tap into. 

The first day was theory. Going back to the basics of what leather is, how it is tanned (created from animal skin) and how to identify what type it is. This is important as you need to know what type it is and what the tannery has done to it. Sometimes leather can be heavily corrected to create a certain affect wanted by a design team.

One of the most natural forms of leather is vegetable tanned leather which is where I have a lot of knowledge. What the course gave me was knowledge of chrome tanned leather and this is the type of leather used in the majority of leather accessories. This type of leather can have a wide variety of applications and corrections done to it.

Why is leather identification important?

This may sound a simple thing but actually identifying it at times can be tricky and getting to grips with this is key. We were shown how to identify with a microscope and through a few other tests. You have to know what the tannery has done to the leather to then know what treatments to use on it.

Whether that is trying to remove ink from the surface or knowing whether to use dye or paint on the surface. This took the first day and its needed.

Once we did that we learnt how to colour mix, this is harder than it looks and it’s just a case of practice. You need to be able to mix the correct shade if you need to cover scuffed areas etc.

We also learnt about ink removal, how to degrease handles to clean them and how to re paint the edges of a bag or strap if the edging has cracked.

It was so good to do this in person as an online course would never be the same. It was so nice to do this away from home too so I almost lived in a leather repair bubble for a few days. Another bonus of doing the course is the general chat when you're in the room. You learn just as much through questions raised as well as the course content itself.

I really enjoyed my time there and now to put a plan together to get what I've learnt into action.