Welcome to Kobi Leatherworking
What is Kobi Leatherworking?
Kobi Leatherworking is a startup leatherworking “company” (currently more a hobby hoping to turn into a business). It is currently operated out of our living room. Our main passion is creating bespoke and custom-made leather armour and outfits for Cosplay, LARPing, SCA or any other event where one can wear leather armour.
We created some standard items to help showcase what we can do. The sale of these items will generate income to sustain and grow this hobby into a fully-fledged company, while we build our reputation within the field. Most of these standard items will focus around the same theme of fantasy cosplay, however, with our love of animals there will also be plenty of animal related accessories so keep an eye on our shop for any ready-to-ship items.
However, due to the sheer number of potential options for creating items we, prefer to work based on somebody’s vision. We love helping others create the armour or accessories that they envision themselves - or their pets - wearing.
So who am I?
My name is Jelle, I was born in a small town in The Netherlands and have been living in Dublin since the end of 2011, considering Ireland home.
Ever since I was a kid I have always had a love of all things nature, animal and fantasy but had never been exposed to any of them growing up. As such these were always things for people on TV. So instead I followed a normal life and career as was expected by society. After university I became a data analyst and worked in this field in Dublin for a good 8 years in tech.
As a child I always loved playing video games and escaping into these RPG worlds to escape reality. However, again due to lack of exposure did not get into reading fantasy until my late 20’s and played my first D&D game in my mid-thirties.
Over the last years I have really started branching out in my interests and trying out things. Over the years I have picked up skills in Safari guiding, tracking, archery, Kendo & Iaido (Japanese sword fighting sports), rock climbing, hiking and orienteering as well as working with dangerous animals and gaining skills in animal training and behaviour. Due to accessibility and availability, Leatherworking is one of the few things that I have really been able to focus on in the past 2 years.
At this stage in my life I would love to live somewhere in the mountains, surrounded by forrest with my wolven friends, living off the land by hunting with my bow and creating everything I need using my leatherworking skills. I would also settle for working at a wolf sanctuary as an animal care or training staff and doing my leather work on the side.
How did we get here?
In 2017 I had already expanded out horizons quite a bit with things like rock climbing, hiking and general adventure holidays. However, I was still fairly happy working in Tech until faced with a protracted period of backfilling multiple other roles in our team without getting the proper support to do so. While essentially working 4 different roles in a major tech company without the right support I ended up burning out and by the end of 2017 I had decided to call it quits in Tech and follow one of our passions and dreams.
I started out by planning a backpacking trip from Patagonia up to Canada and intending to try and volunteer with wolves in Canada to fulfill one of our life long dreams. When this latter did not pan out I shifted to a different group of animals, big cats. This search led me randomly to a website and course to become a Safari Guide. After reading the itinerary I decided this was what I was going to do and so in January 2019 I embarked on my journey of working with animals, which, inadvertently started my leatherworking journey as well.
To keep things short, I had 3 months to fill in between work and starting my safari guide training. During this time an opportunity arised to fulfill another life long dream of mine, to become an archer. I even found somebody who could teach me how to build my own traditional bow and so I signed up to this course and built my own bow. At some stage during these three months after building my bow I thought it would be cool to have a leather handwrap around it and so I looked into this and found the Dublin Leather Store, which at the time did meetups where you could go and get help creating your items. After having done this the logical next step was to create my own wrist guard and quiver.
I thought that would be the end of it as I embarked on another journey but shortly after arriving in Africa I chipped my brand new laptop on a wall. I decided I needed a laptop bag or cover to protect it from this type of damage and so I had some of my equipment sent over to me and got to work create a laptop bag and kindle cover. Due to the limited supplies I decided to try stitching a design as opposed to embossing.
Over the year I came up with a few fun little projects to keep myself busy during the few off hourse we had as safari guides and I created some miniature armours for some of the stuffed animals we had.
Fast forward to the start of 2020 when we arrived at Wolf Park to fulfill our life long dream of working with wolves just as covid hit. As we got stuck here for the next 3 months (longer if the US government had allowed) we decided to try our hand at tanning (the process of turning hides into leather) seen as we were butchering road kill deer and still born calves for the wolves anyway. Although our skinning technique was decent for a newbie, without proper direction I had no real idea whether what I was doing within the tanning process was right or not and the end result was more parchment as opposed to buckskin. All I will say is that I would love to try my hand at it again someday under a bit more guidance, though it is very tough and my hands ached for months after in the mornings.
Due to covid all my other plans regarding safari guiding and working with wolves kind of fell apart and I was forced back into Tech. This gave me the opportunity though to pick up the leatherworking again and I did. I started of created a proper quiver to replace the one I had hastily made before Africa. This eventually led to the creation of my own armour and the Seraphina armour sets.
A few more attempts at working with wolves brings us to the present where we are back in Ireland, working at Dogs Trust (an dog rescue company) working to build up our leatherworking business on the side
So who is Kobi?
If my name is Jelle and not Kobi you are probablly wondering who Kobi is or what is behind the name. Amidst my adventures I spent some time at the DSPCA (Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). Here I met one of my long time friends, Kobi. We bonded quite quickly when taking him out for a walk and I was lucky enough to get in touch with his adopted family and they allowed me to take him out on walks. He was the first real animal companion I have had and when I first started thinking about the idea of a leatherworking company I vowed I would name it after him and here we are. I know it is not the most searchable name for a leather armoury business but it is my way of keeping his spirit alive and honouring what he has meant for me throughout my journey of burnout and rediscovery.
You might also recognise one of the images from one of the other pictures above ;)
A peek into our workshop
As I mentioned up above, the current workshop is our dining table in the living room of our 1 bed. It is a little tight at times but it does the job. Although at times I would love a bigger space that I can organize more and have room for say a press to do bigger embossing quicker and at scale, I also find the primitive nature of the work adds to the process and makes the end result more genuine. This also means each product is a unique work of art with its own quirks that you would not get from factory made items
Our staff
I could not do this without the support of our highly skilled and trained staff. Aside from myself there are Sean and Odhran. Each brings their own vital skills to the process. Odhran (right) is our main motivational expert and overall quality control. He will let me know I am doing a good job by kissing me copious amounts of kisses and cuddles. While he is not doing that he will be looking over my shoulder to ensure the work is being progressed smoothly.
Sean (below) ensures plenty of breaks are taken so we don’t get brunt out. He is also in charge of making sure all our stitching is done properly and the threads used are up to code.
So how does it work?
Work In Progress
Initial contact and gathering information:
Cost estimate, Once agreed on pieces, range provided
How do costs get calculated:
Materials used: leather, thread, dye, glue etc
Hours: designing embossing pieces, creating dummies to work on, cutting, prepping, embossing, stitching, dying, sealing, antiquing
Fitting, where possible
Shipping
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