Home — The Journey — Step 6 of 7
This is where the hours live. Cut panels are stitched, lined, and reinforced into something built to outlast its owner — and on the most ambitious pieces, the labor is measured not in hours but in weeks.
Building the Object
Construction is assembly with consequences. Panels are joined — by hand saddle-stitch or on machines fitted with leather needles — linings (often fine calfskin) are set, and the points that take a lifetime of stress — handle anchors, corners, strap loops — are reinforced so they don't fail. Stitch density, thread choice, and edge alignment all get decided here, and they're the difference between a piece that loosens in a year and one that's handed down. Cocodri's earliest bags were built on a sewing machine fitted with a diamond-tip leather needle; at Mark Staton Co., a dedicated Lead Purse Maker, Allison Staton, heads assembly.
The People Who Build It
Nowhere is the labor more visible than in Louisiana's saddle tradition. Ken Raye, a Western saddlemaker in Zachary trained in the Texas tradition, describes what a tooled saddle actually costs in time:
"I may sit here for nearly a week at a time — sitting and pecking. If I've got a couple saddles with some tooling on them."— Ken Raye, Ken Raye's Custom Saddlery (WAFB)
A single fully hand-tooled collector's saddle — buck-stitched, with hand-stitched cantle binding, tapaderos, scabbard, and saddle bags — can run to roughly 600 hours of work. In the French Quarter, Micah McGrath sets the same bar on a smaller scale:
"Every single stitch is done by hand."— Micah McGrath, Micah McGrath Leather Works (micahmcgrath.com)
Why It Matters to the Finished Piece
Saddle-stitching, leather-needle machine work, calfskin linings, and reinforced stress points are exactly what let an alligator piece survive decades of daily use — the "lasts a lifetime" promise nearly every Louisiana maker makes. The 600-hour saddle is the dramatic version, but the same principle is in every well-built wallet: the hours you can't see are the reason it doesn't fall apart.
Sources: WAFB, "Meet Your Neighbor: Ken Raye"; micahmcgrath.com; The Advocate (Mark Staton Co.); Louisiana Folklife survey (saddle labor). See also The Artisans.
Next — Step 7
Edges burnished, surface glazed, hardware set, inspected — the last step that separates a luxury piece from a craft-fair one.
Step 7 — Finished