Kenny Nyhus Fadil – Hand-Stitched Leatherwork

Kenny Nyhus Fadil has been working leather by hand for several years, building from a single uneven card holder into a small home workshop. He cuts, skives, and saddle-stitches every project that ends up in a pattern guide on this site, and he tests every tool, thread, and finish on real benchwork before recommending it.

Background

Kenny started leatherwork the way most hand-stitchers do — by ruining a piece of veg-tan and learning what a stitching pony was supposed to feel like. After a few hundred hours at the bench, the pricking iron spacing got cleaner, the saddle stitches stopped leaning, and the burnished edges started looking like the work he had been studying online. The journal entries from that learning curve became the first guides on LeatherCraft Haven.

He manages a small portfolio of niche websites focused on craftsmanship and self-sufficiency. LeatherCraft Haven is the project where the bench, the leather, and the writing all live in the same room.

Specialties

• Saddle stitching with Tiger thread and Ritza 25 — pull tension, stitch length, and angle control
• Edge finishing on vegetable-tanned leather — bevel sequence, sanding through grits, gum tragacanth and beeswax burnish
• Small leather goods — card holders, cardholder-wallets, bifolds, and slim minimalist designs
• Belt construction — choosing 8-10 oz veg-tan, oil and finish workflow, buckle attachment
• Pricking iron technique — how spacing per inch (SPI) interacts with thread diameter
• Tool selection on a real budget — what is worth the upgrade and what is not

Testing Approach

Every project guide on LeatherCraft Haven is built from a real piece — leather sourced, cut, skived, stitched, and finished on Kenny’s own bench before the article goes up. Tool reviews come after at least one full project of use. Edge finish comparisons are run side-by-side on identical leather offcuts so the difference between gum tragacanth and saddle soap, or between Fiebing’s and Resolene, is visible in the photographs.

Connect

Reach out through the LeatherCraft Haven contact page.