Choosing Your First Leather
What to look for as a beginner: tanning method, weight, and where to buy small pieces.
Most beginner leatherworking projects — wallets, card holders, simple bags — are best started with vegetable-tanned leather. It holds a crease, takes dye and edge finishing well, and is forgiving to work with by hand.
Weight
Leather weight is usually given in ounces, where 1 oz ≈ 1/64 inch of thickness. For small goods:
- 2–3 oz — linings, thin folds
- 4–5 oz — wallets, card holders, single-layer small goods
- 7–9 oz — belts, straps, structural pieces
💡 Tip
Buy pre-cut scrap packs or remnant bundles for your first few projects. You'll ruin some material learning to cut and skive cleanly, and there's no reason to practice on an expensive full hide.
Where it comes from matters less than you think
Full-grain vs. top-grain matters for durability and patina, but for a first project, consistency of thickness matters more — uneven scrap leather makes skiving and stitching harder to learn on than it needs to be.
Sources
- All About Awls — Tandy Leather