Editéur Plus Editéur Plus - The Fourteenth Issue | Page 30

30 EDITÉUR PLUS plain and simple, but beautiful leather shoulder bag. When Nikke moved to Stellenbosch, she made a bag, one from the off-cuts of hers as a birthday gift. It was after Conrad saw how many compliments they got from these two bags that they thought it could be a good idea to make similar bags and sell them. They had no idea of where to start sourcing the leather, nor did they have any tools. Nikke made the holes for the stitching on their own two bags with the sharp end of a compass. With R800 each they went to a local leather store and were able to buy one piece of vegetable tanned leather and only the most basic tools: a hole punch, leather scis- sors, waxed thread, two hand stitching needles and a buckle that could be used on a shoulder strap. They were very excited about the new venture but had no idea that it would turn out as the Eden & Co. they own today. Conrad has to admit that it certainly was not just plain sailing after their first purchases. They went back to the apartment he stayed in at the time, and started cutting their patterns from the leather. They did everything on the cold tiles in the middle of winter, due to the lack of cutting tables and the spacious workspace they have today. Everything was new to them; from learning to develop pat- terns from designs, to drawing long straight lines with only a standard 30cm plastic ruler and a bread slicing plate as a cutting platform and mastering the proper saddle stitching technique. After having finally completed their first three bags from the first piece of leather, it took them almost four months EDITÉUR PLUS / THE FOURTEENTH ISSUE