My Story
Yep, that is Me, the leather worker! I would say a pretty normal and usual look for a day's work. What do you think?
If you have Your cup of coffee, tea, chai in hand, let's crack on:
The story of Branded42 actually started with fabric bags. Yes, nothing to do with leather.
Fabric bags were my desire, my challenge to make something I always wanted to make. To this day I remember the sewing machine my mum owned; the hum, the smell of the sewing machine oil and the incredible designs that came in the magazines that you could make at home! Pretty incredible, right? (Mind you, if you had no idea about sewing anything, those patterns in the magazine turned out somewhat different...if you know what I mean.)
After spending most of my grown-up life doing grown-up things, I stumbled upon some groups on Facebook that awakened a new will to learn to sew. And that is how it started. First it was little things, a key fob here and there, followed by a very rudimentary tote bag and progressed on.
As my experience grew, I got more and more adventurous and had this crazy thought about adding leather details to my bags.
That is when it happened. A visit to a local leather supplier, "just" to look at leather to add to my fabric bags. Seems pretty simple and easy right? So I thought!
Except, this place was full of wonderful smells, full of hardware, books to teach you things and most importantly, wonderful people who treated me (and still do) like family from the moment I stepped foot in the store.
I was hooked, and I didn't even know it!
When they told me they have classes to teach me what I wish to know about adding leather to my bags, I was over the moon! I had no projects with me at the time, so Andy sat me down and showed me the first steps of tooling leather. I stumbled like an infant, I struggled with the swivel knife as I did with the pencil at the beginning of school. Yet I was excited. The act of creating something so different, giving life to a lifeless drawing on tracing paper was so wonderful. I knew then, I wanted to know more. I wanted to learn more about this thing called tooling and leather working.
So here we are. I am still evolving, developing, learning. I like to think of myself as an apprentice, and will probably remain that for life.
OH, the name you ask? Well...as a life-long World of Warcraft player and big time nerd/geek, I had to create something that spoke to me. My search for being better, for the answers in leather-crafting, the ultimate knowledge (if there is such in a trade like this) resulted in this name...
With this in mind, I am sure now you get the reference to "42", the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of life, the universe, and Everything" from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
And while we search for that, I would love to share what I have learned, what I dream about at 3am (yes, I get up that time to put thoughts down for a new design, or adjustment) with you. So you can take a piece of unique, completely handcrafted item home with you to love.
Zita at Branded42
