Leather is a strong and versatile material, and indispensable when you’re working, hunting, or exploring outdoors. Hunter and outdoor professional Carsten Bothe offers the ultimate beginner’s guide for this useful hobby. These photo-rich, step-by-step instructions prove that anyone can learn the techniques of cutting, sewing, and finishing to make, or repair, your essential leather items. You’ll learn how to make a seam, to wet-form, to apply button studs and rivets, and everything else needed to master the basics. Five useful projects—good looking, and able to be put to practical use—help you put what you’ve learned into practice: make your own belt, dog leash, belt bag, knife sheath, and leather holster. Whether you are a hunter, reenactor, knife maker, scout, horseback rider, or bushcraft fan, or you use leather in other ways, here is your guide to a new skill.

Carsten Bothe is an outdoor professional, a hunter, and a certified biologist who lives and works as a freelance journalist in Lower Saxony, Germany.