The Making of a Shawl Cuff

Have you ever wondered how we make those beautiful shawl cuffs you see in our shop? Wonder no more! In this special episode of Behind the Skeins Dave is going to talk you through step by step how he makes each and every one of the shawl cuffs we sell. 

From a flat sheet of leather, to shaping, to snaps. It's all here!

He starts with a size template and a bit of leather.

Using the template, the leather is cut down to size.

Using something hard as a guide for rounding the ends will make it easier. Here Dave uses washers to shape the ends of the cuff.

Now you have the very basic shape, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

Next up is sanding to make the shape extra smooth.

Now is edging. This creates a nice beveled edge for the next step. You can see the very thin strip that is being removed here. 

Here is why so much time is spent making a clean smooth edge all the way around. He will add beeswax to that edge to make all the fibers laydown in the same direction.

Then the burning starts. Burnishing is the action that polishes the edges.  This can be done one of two ways: by hand with a wooden tool

Or Dave's prefered way, with a special Dremel tool bit

Here's how it is looking now. 

Next he will need to punch a hole in each end to make room for the snaps. Thankfully there is a heavy duty hole puncher just for this purpose. 

Lastly fit and crimp the snaps into place.

A finished leather shawl cuff!

As you can see he makes very one of these by hand with love in every detail. While they are all very similar thanks to templates, no two will ever be identical. 

Want Dave to make you your very own shawl cuff? Just click here! 

If you want to see Dave at work and hear is commentary on shawl cuff making, head over to YouTube to see the full video. 

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