Theresa Emmerich Kamper: ‘Threads and Bag sewing workshop’

Come learn to create one of the most practical, useful, yet underrated items that can be made from leather, a bag. Often not even considered until you need one, a bag is an essential item we use in one for another every day of our lives!

Guided by Dr Theresa Kamper with over 25 years of leather crafting experience to share, you will design your own bespoke bag, and learn a variety of stitches suited to soft, oil tanned leather.

Over the course of two days, you will learn how to process sinew, intestine and leather to make usable and unique thread. You will learn a variety of stitches and how to choose the best stitch for different seam types and go home with a memory card of stiches for later reference.

We will cover basic patterning concepts on how to construct a two-dimensional pattern. Then, assemble this pattern into a three-dimensional work of utilitarian art! After making a paper pattern, we will construct a small bag from soft, fat tanned leather which will incorporate many of the seams and stitches covered earlier in the course.

Not only will you go home with a finished bag ready for use, you will have the skills and confidence to produce your own functional works of art!

Dr Theresa Emmerich Kamper PhD

Theresa is an avid practitioner of traditional living skills and primitive technology of all kinds. An interest which came in part from growing up in the Rocky Mountains in the USA, where backpacking, hunting and fishing were part of the culture. She has followed this interest into the academic field of Experimental Archaeology in which she holds a PhD from the University of Exeter in the UK. Theresa has been tanning skins using traditional technologies for over 30 years. Learning to tan was a natural offshoot of the attempt to use as much of the animal as possible and had the added bonus of producing a beautiful end product. She includes in her instruction a diverse range of information, from skin morphology to helpful hints in dealing with the numerous and frustrating problems which are often encountered when first learning to tan.