First Post!!

Allright, I should have done this ages ago but keep delaying for god knows what reason. Actually I'll tell you some of the reasons. I work in the finance industry, and when you work with other people's money you need to be sure that your mental focus is 100%, otherwise money goes missing and hey presto, people will do terrible things for money. This leaves me drained at the end of the day and it's a very very bad time to start writing a blog about my hobby. Other reason that occupy most of my brain space is how to make your millions. I know that is a cliche, after all I'm a young man with a dream, and money goes a long way to fulfill that dream. I speculate on a lot of things and that occupy most of my time too.

Now, lets get back to my hobby. Actually, back a few steps and start with the Ped's & Ro name. It's a combination of our (my wife and I) three dogs' names, Pedro, Nero & Roxy. Pedro and Nero are Rough Collies (think Lassie) and Roxy is a Siberian Husky. My wife came up with the idea that we should dedicate our dogs' name into this brand name which I can use for whatever stuff i want to use. She's big on marketing and suggested that a brand name is one of the first that clients will recognize so it should be catchy. Well I love it!! It's perfect.

So back to my hobby. I like creating items, it relaxes me by letting my creative side flourish. The items in question is leather. I absolutely love leather. Their smell, their luxurious feel, their ruggedness, their patina, etc, i can go on. I've always been fascinated by leather. When my mother buys a new leather handbag I will inspect it and get a good feel on how it feels. When I visit stores that sells leather bag I will make an excuse to go into the store and 'inspect' each one of them. What got me hooked up and drove me into making leather item was a leather watch band. Yup, a watch band. There are lots of impressive artisan (Delaurian, Rob Montana 'The Strap Smith', GSD, Dangerous8, etc) out there that build exceptional watch straps. It's an eye opener and is inspirational. In my opinion, building a leather watch band takes far more precision than say building a leather bag. Attention to detail prevails in such a small item, from the number of stitched holes to the way the edge is finished. People do notice these details and you'd better be sure those details exist!!

I started learning the craft by building simple straps, and each one gets better. The last one i built accompanied me to Northern Europe. Wore this for 1 months straight without any serious sign of deterioration. I was very impressed!!

My choice of leather is vegetable-tanned (not exclusive though). IMO, it's the best kind of leather. The oxidation process (scientific word for Patina) alone is fascinating. It's also extremely durable and aged exceptionally well. I'm always on the hunt for those unique veg-tanned leather. My craft is old fashioned, everything is done by hand, from cutting the leather piece, burnishing the edge, punching the stitching holes to stitching. You can say that I'm passionate about helping the environment and so only human watt is use. 

Well there goes my journey into leather craft. I'm at the stage where I can comfortably offer my creation to the general public with cash reward of course (i take gold and silver too) :). I will be posting on this blog frequently to update everyone on what items and ideas are in my head, the stuff I have made and will be made, also other unique leather articles that I've found.

Stay Tuned...