PITTSWOOD
Handcrafted Pens & Leather Goods From Wales
Meet the Makers.....
We are a husband and wife team of hobby crafters and we make hand-turned pens (made by Kelvin) and leathercraft goodies (made by Christine). We make all our items at home in South Wales, UK.
Christine
Kelvin
Kelvin
Pen Maker
Above: Kelvin, at his wood lathe turning a pen body.
Kelvin started woodturning in 2015 after he built a garden workshop in preparation for his retirement. At first, he intended to concentrate on making wooden Nautilus shells, but on reading an article on pen turning he purchased a woodturning lathe and decided to make pens as well!
Kelvin has a special interest in using reclaimed woods that have a historic or interesting background or have an sentimental connection to the customer. This really adds your own personal character and charm to the pen.
He has a small collection of wood for these 'special pens' or 'Pens with Provenance' as he likes to call them, but if you have your own 'special' piece of timber that you'd like him to make a pen out of, please do let him know.
A beautiful fountain pen in Thuya Burl wood.
A stunning pen set in cross-cut English Yew wood.
Above: One of Kelvin's beautiful hand made nautilus shells. This one is made with spalted beech wood.
Christine
Leathercrafter
Above: Me, at my very small work station, making an embossed leather journal cover for a B6 365 Stalogy notebook.
I absolutely fell in love with leathercraft back in 2016 after Kelvin asked me to make him a simple zipped pouch for his keys. That was the first time I had worked with leather and I was hooked from that moment on! Since then I have made all sorts of leather items, from little key fobs to large laptop bags and woodturner aprons.
There is one thing I have learned about leathercraft (besides the vast number of products one could make), is the number of processes you could use to actually make a product! - Designing, template making, cutting, embossing, tooling, wet moulding, carving, dying, sewing, bevelling, burnishing, waxing, buffing, and the list goes on!
It certainly keeps you interested from start to finish!!
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I do everything by hand, including the sewing which is done with the traditional saddle stitch method (sewing with two needles on one thread), this produces a superior hand made quality product that is much stronger than machined leather goods.
I hand stitch all my leather work
This was the first bag I designed and made for myself back in 2016, shown here with a matching purse.
I call this the 'Lattice bag' as it reminds me of salmon lattice pies! Each square was painstakingly cut out by hand using a craft knife.
All hand dyed and hand stitched.
We both hope you enjoy browsing through our website and if you would like to contact us, please send an email to info@pittswoodpens.co.uk.