The workshops, 1951–2025

Assembled for this archive from the Society's newsletters, 1951–2023, and from the Society's own posted convention documents and workshop flyers, 2014–2025. Each claim names the issue and page it comes from. The modern sources are already digital text or a PDF read directly, and are quoted as printed. Those documents, and the notices the Society posted on its own website at the time, are listed by year on Convention and workshop papers, 2014–2025.

Workshop Tips, from the first issue onward

Before the Society ran a single workshop it ran a column called one. When the editor set out what Canadian Leathercraft would carry, in September 1951, the list ran: editorials on original design and leathercraft standards, technical articles, foreign country news, book reviews, special events, Who's Who in Canadian Leathercraft — and Workshop Tips (September 1951, pp. 4 and 7). It was a way of getting the knowledge out of the members' hands and onto paper, and the Society was willing to pay for it.

• A workshop, in this Society, meant a day with the leather in your hands — as against a demonstration, which you watched. Branches ran both, usually in that order
• Workshop Tips was a newsletter column from the first issue of 1951; from 1952 the Society paid $2.00 in cash or a membership renewal card for each tip it printed
• Hamilton held nine summer workshops in members' homes in 1960, and kept them up for six summers — the longest workshop programme in this archive
• From 1961 a branch ran workshops aimed squarely at the Associate rating; nine members took the rating in the two years that followed
• The Society twice granted each branch $25 towards a workshop — once in the early 1970s, cancelled when it ran a deficit, and again in 1979
• 16 November 1991, Hamilton, Ruth Haig on the molded credit card holder — and she was back at the same church ten months later with a second box
• Interest fell through the 1990s; in 1996 the Society created a cash Workshop Award, open only to General Members, to get people back into its own workshops
• By 2014 the Annual itself carried a workshop menu: Hamilton's convention offered seven demonstrations and workshops side by side, from hot gold foil work to a machine-sewn purse
• Mississauga ran its own workshop series later in the 2010s — pewter casting in two parts, machine-sewn handbags — out of a community kitchen in Rangeview
• The last workshop report in this archive: the Calico Clutch Purse Workshop at Norland, 17 September 2022 — after the sharpening day of eight members at Norland in October 2019, reported to the virtual 70th Annual

The rate is printed in the autumn of 1952: “To encourage active participation by member craftsmen, Canadian Leathercraft will pay $2.00 in cash, or a General Membership Renewal Card for each Workshop Tip accepted from C.S.C.L. members for reprinting” (Autumn 1952, p. 9). Six years later the payment is spoken of in the past tense — “In the early days of C.S.C.L., we paid $2.00 for each Workshop Tip accepted” and in the same notice reinstated: “It has been decided to reinstate this policy, so if anyone has any Workshop Tips, send them along … you will receive $2.00 for each of them published” (Spring 1958, p. 9).

The Society's own cumulative index, printed in the autumn of 1961, shows what had accumulated: tips filed under Bleaching, Embossing, Finishing, Gussets, Handles, Mallet, Mildew, Polishing and Shrinkage, three of them on a loose slipsheet (Autumn 1961, p. 8). The named contributors run the length of the archive — Irva Ford, who found that a jigsaw would cut scalloped sole leather where a knife wandered (Winter 1961, p. 4); Jessie Little, on x-ray film as a stiffener and ice-cream containers as pattern templates (Winter 1974, p. 4); and the Belleville branch, on burnishing a belt edge with wet canvas (Winter 1975, p. 5).

1953: a workshop period inside the Annual Meeting

The first workshop the Society ran as a body was a session of its own Annual Meeting. The programme printed in the spring of 1953 promises “colored slide films on contemporary Canadian Leathercraft — a morning workshop period — luncheon — guest speaker Thor Hansen” (Spring 1953, p. 12); the report afterwards says the rooms of the Ryerson Institute “were all used to accommodate illustrated discussions, displays and a workshop period” (Summer 1953, p. 1). The pattern set there — talk in the morning, hands on the leather after it — is the pattern every later workshop follows.

The Assemblies: Sunday morning, and something to take home

The International Assembly of Leathercraftsmen made the workshop its centrepiece. Announcing the tenth Assembly, the newsletter says “A workshop is being planned for Sunday morning, so that you can take home with you an almost finished article as a lasting memento” (Winter 1963, p. 2). The report says it worked: the general business meeting was moved to Saturday night “so that Sunday morning could be devoted to a workshop”, Larry DeRosia instructed on decorative cuts and design, Clara Cavanagh on small leather trays, and “the 58 members who registered for this project had a souvenir of the 10th I.A.L.C. to take home” (Summer 1964, pp. 1–2).

By the Centennial Assembly of 1967 the balance had tipped altogether: “Workshops will be the basic part of the program as well as the usual demonstrations. Two workshops are planned for Saturday and one for Sunday morning” (Autumn 1966, p. 3). At the fifteenth, in London in 1969, twelve members ran a workshop each, from tool sharpening to glove making to millboard box construction (Summer 1969, p. 3).

Hamilton's summer workshops, 1960–1965

The most sustained workshop programme in this archive was not the Society's but a branch's, and it began because a few people had time on their hands. The branch's own account: “During the summer a group of Hamilton Leathercraftsmen held nine very successful workshops. The group was composed of a few persons who felt that they had more leisure hours during the summer and, with less activities, more time could be spent finishing projects at home. Each workshop was held at different member's homes and friendliness and a relaxed atmosphere made them most enjoyable as well as educational” (Autumn 1960, p. 11).

The same page draws the conclusion, and it is the plainest sentence in this archive about why the Society bothered with workshops at all: “People want to DO leather not TALK it!” The writer's recommendation follows — that if guilds “would break into small groups and have workshops as well as the regular meetings, it would increase the membership and also the quality of the work.”

They kept it up. The second summer the branch “experimented by separating into three geographical groups”, covering belts, gloves and desk pad corners (Summer 1961, p. 5). By 1962 the workshops ran twice a month through the summer, “averaging about twenty members each meeting” (Autumn 1962, p. 4). By the autumn of 1964 the habit had moved into the winter season: the second meeting of the month was a demonstration and the fourth was a workshop, “usually a follow-up of one of the demonstrations” — Jean Newton demonstrated shoe horns in October, and the next meeting was a shoe-horn workshop (Autumn 1964, p. 1). The branch's own ten-year history records the ending as flatly as the beginning: “A summer workshop was held but because of holiday schedules, it has been discontinued” (Summer 1966, p. 3).

The workshops that made Associates

In 1961 someone worked out that a workshop could do more than pass an evening. From the Hamilton branch's ten-year history: “This was the year when Margaret Wray originated the idea of holding special workshops for those who were interested in becoming Associate members and when she contacted me I agreed to help.” The result is a list: “At the C.S.C.L. Annual that year, the following names were added to the list of Associate members: Messrs Courneya and Torry and Mesdames Henstridge, Caswell, Comfort, Zimmerman, Schooley. The following year, Mildred Kemp and Alvin Haig were included in the group” (Summer 1966, p. 3). Nine Associates in two years, out of one branch, from a series of workshops aimed at the rating.

The name is easy to misread here: it falls across a line break, “Margaret” ending one line and “Wray” beginning the next, and could be taken for Margaret Ray. The same page lists Margaret Wray among the branch's later executive, confirming the surname. She is named here for the first time in this archive.

The idea outlasted the people who had it. Twenty-one years later the newsletter advertises “ASSOCIATES WORKSHOP: Saturday Sept. 18th - 1:30 p.m. This is a MUST for ALL ASSOCIATES who wish to progress” (Summer 1982, p. 16).

Branches teaching branches

A branch workshop was routinely a day for two or three branches at once, and the newsletters record the visits like fixtures. Kirkland Lake's leathercrafters had a workshop weekend on 21 September 1956 (Autumn 1956, p. 11). On 11 November 1961 the Hamilton Guild played host to Tillsonburg: Edith Melchior took the afternoon session and everyone present made suede poinsettias, Hamilton served a smorgasbord supper to almost fifty people, and in the evening Frank Torry “very capably handled a work session on the making of Christmas boxes” (Autumn 1961, p. 3). On 3 November 1962 Hamilton was host to London and Barrie (Spring 1963, p. 5); the following season Barrie returned the favour, with two Hamilton members demonstrating (Spring 1964, p. 5).

The exchange crossed the border too. In the same season the Frontier Leathercraft Guild of Buffalo hosted both the Eastern Leathercraft Guild of Rochester and the Hamilton branch at an open house in the Porter Library, with demonstrations of gussets, plug tooling, spirit dyeing, and the skiving and turning of corners (Spring 1964, p. 5).

The $25 grant, twice

The Society twice tried to pay for branch workshops out of the centre. The first attempt is recorded in the twenty-five-year retrospective: “This was the first year, $25 grants were made available for branch workshops and later were cancelled due to C.S.C.L. operating at a slight deficit” (Spring 1975, p. 9).

The second is in the President's report for 1979 — Beula Reynolds, writing to the membership: “We are planning a master workshop for this next year, and hope you will plan to attend. The branches were each given $25.00 to help finance a workshop again this year. All branches have been very generous with their invitations to members-at-large and other branches to attend any of their workshops. If you haven't participated yet, ask any or all of them what they are planning this next year and join in this friendly exchange” (January 1980, p. 3).

The figure was not the Society's own idea of what a workshop cost. The Ontario Crafts Council used the same one, and in 1980 raised it: financial assistance to affiliates “has been changed to include $25.00 three times a year or $75.00 once. This will assist groups who wish to plan an extensive workshop” (Spring 1980, p. 3).

Asking the members what they wanted

Twice the Society put the question to the membership. In the winter of 1975 a page of members' comments records the request for “Workshops oftener than Annual”, and the answer beside it is a constitutional one: “Branches are autonomous as far as program is concerned. If they have the courage and willingness to work — doors can be opened” (Winter 1975, p. 3). Four years later the question is narrower and the notice is urgent: “WORKSHOP AT HARBOUR FRONT MEETING ROOM - TORONTO. Do you want a one day or a weekend workshop? Suggestions for the workshop are to be sent to Mrs. Beula Reynolds, 550 Parkinson Road, Woodstock, immediately so arrangements can be made and announced at the annual meeting” (January 1979, p. 3).

What was taught

The branch reports name the subject and, nearly always, the member who led it. A Christmas decoration, completed at the annual get-together (Winter 1972, p. 9). Bottle covering under Hilda Darbyshire, November 1973, and a moccasin workshop the same season (Winter 1973, p. 4). Jessie Little's dry brush dye technique, demonstrated one month and worked by every member the next (Winter 1973, p. 7). Photo frames under Nora Huyck, after a buffet supper on 9 October (Winter 1973, p. 8). Cat-tails in leather, led by Kay Cloughley (Summer 1975, p. 12). Macramé plant hangers, led by May Corbett (Autumn 1975, p. 6). Corn husk dolls, led by Carol McLean of Woodstock (Winter 1976, p. 8). Designing flower pins, by Margaret Monteith, at Springbank Public School in Woodstock on 27 May 1978, potluck lunch (Spring 1978, p. 4). Moulded trays, a mini-workshop by Hope Drysdale (Summer 1985, p. 6).

Woodstock's programme for 1979–80 shows how a branch built a season around them: a one-piece wallet workshop with Ruth Haig on 15 September, nine to four; a cuir bouilli workshop with Clara Cavanagh on 20 October, nine to four; and between them the ordinary evening meetings — leather carving, “What The Judges Look For”, pendants with gemstones, miniatures in leather (Summer 1979, p. 5). Two whole Saturdays in a season of ten meetings.

Winter 1973 p. 4 prints “a workshop on lhoccasin mixing.” The subject is moccasins; the two garbled words after it are not what the branch secretary wrote, and remain unsettled.

Autumn 1991: Hamilton and the moulded credit-card holder

The Autumn 1991 issue carries a notice on the page facing the editors' plea for copy: Saturday, November 16, 1991, at St. Margaret's Anglican Church, Emerson Avenue, Hamilton; all day, nine to four; fee to be decided; demonstrator Ruth Haig; topic, a molded credit card holder. The materials list asks for a wooden block 2¼ × 3½ × ¼ inches, two-and-a-half to three ounce leather, glue, line gouge, knife, cutting board, stitching wheel, saddler's needle, thread, awl, bone folder and a dome snap — and then adds the sentence that could stand over the whole forty years: “This list is not carved in stone. Bring whatever else you feel you may need” (Autumn 1991, p. 7).

1992: the same church, the same demonstrator, a second box

The workshops carried straight on into the next year. A notice for Friday–Saturday, September 18–19, 1992, at the same St. Margaret's Church, Emerson Street, Hamilton, names the same demonstrator, Ruth Haig, on a related project: boxes built by the lasting technique, wetting leather and moulding it over a carved basswood form (Summer 1992, p. 9). Where the November 1991 box was moulded by hand over a card-holder shape, this one used a cobbler's lasting pliers and a wooden last cut to size — the same craftswoman, back within the year, teaching the next step.

The 1990s: attendance falls, and the Society tries a prize

By the middle of the decade the Society said plainly that its own workshops were losing people: “In recent years, interest and attendance in the CSCL-sponsored workshops has declined.” Its answer, approved jointly by the Executive and the Council of Fellows, was a new cash award — the CSCL Workshop Award — presented at each Annual, and built to favour exactly the members least likely to already hold a ribbon. It was open only to General Members: “This is an award exclusively for CSCL General Members. Associates and Fellows cannot qualify.” One award ran per Society-sponsored workshop between Annuals, judged not on craftsmanship but on completion and display; the notice illustrates the odds with a real workshop, unnamed elsewhere in this archive — “nine people attended my leather bottell workshop in September - one Fellow, four Associates, and four General Members,” leaving the four General Members a one-in-four chance apiece (Summer 1996, p. 5).

The record thins after 1996 but does not stop. A Fall Workshop was called for Saturday 30 September 2000 at St. Margaret's Anglican Church, Emerson St., Hamilton, nine to half past four, on Woodsman Mitts by Lauchlan Harrison, with needles, moose, deer and elk hides, thread and patterns supplied on the day and a $15 fee, preregistration with Ruth Haig by 15 September (Spring–Summer 2000, pp. 1 and 11). At the 2001 Annual, after Sandra Roberts of Norland presented “Pyrography — Leather Burning”, Mississauga's Bill Whittingham “started the first part of his workshop making ‘Inlay Notepads’” (Spring 2001, p. 7). And on a promise made at the 2003 Norland Annual Weekend, 1st Vice-President Peter Grove and Hamilton President Lauchlan Harrison “presented a ‘Basic Tool Use Workshop’ on a frosty November 22, 2003” — “attendance was small” but the attendees “were enthusiastic”; the issue's cover photograph shows six members round a table (Winter 2003–2004, pp. 1–2).

2014: the convention itself becomes a workshop

The Hamilton branch's Annual carried a printed menu of its own, headed Descriptions of Demonstrations and Workshops — CSCL Annual 2014, Hamilton Branch. Four were watch-only demonstrations: composition and colour with spirit dyes and acrylic paint, from Desiree Kern; Western floral pattern drawing, from Lester Pinter; hot gold foil work — the lines traditionally seen on inlaid coffee tables and book bindings — from Andy Hughes; and box covering with mitred, stitched corners, from Sean Dalgetty. Three were hands-on workshops with their own tool lists and skill levels: a Texan-style cigar case with Craig Gill (intermediate, bring your own cutting and hand-sewing tools); a two-piece hand-stitched purse with a thong strap, from Kristi Grove (beginner, all tools supplied); and a leather-covered belt buckle from Lauchlan Harrison (beginner, some hand-stitching experience useful). The document does not say how many attended, only what was on offer — the clearest single record in this archive of a convention run as a day of teaching rather than a day of judging.

Mississauga's workshop series, 2016–2018

Later in the decade a branch built its own short series out of a rented kitchen. On Saturday, April 16, 2016, at Focused on Food in Mississauga, Eugene Pik ran the first half of a two-part pewter-casting workshop: building a subject in polymer clay, hardening and trimming it, then hot-gluing an acrylic box around it and pouring the first half of a silicone mould, to cure overnight before the second workshop — silicone mould-making and pouring the liquid pewter — could follow. On Sunday, March 19, 2017, at Focused on Food, 885 Rangeview Road, Mississauga, ten to four, CSCL Workshops presented the Hinged Box — an interlocking hinged top over a small leather box in 5 oz veg leather and 8 oz sole leather, block-dyed and saturation-dyed with alcohol dye, “a design created by David Trotter and perfected by David McPherson FCSCL”; $45 for members, $50 for others, materials and loaner tools included (Hinged Box flyer, 2017). On Sunday, February 11, 2018, at the same address, Karen Gunna FCSCL ran a machine-sewing workshop on flat-bed walking-foot machines: a large unlined “hobo” bag as the beginner option, or a smaller lined phone pouch with a strap, working through zipper installation, patterning, seaming, appliqué, and snap and rivet setting. The pewter and machine-sewing notices route registration through a branch officer rather than printing an address or number on the page, which this account follows.

2019 to 2025: the last workshops, all at Norland

The Committee presented one workshop in these years, on “a beautiful Saturday in October” in 2019: a sharpening day run by Lauch Harrison FCSCL and Lester Pinter, reported to the virtual 70th Annual of 2021. It was held in Norland — the Norland Public Library in the report as Lauch Harrison and Jimmy Wilkes signed it for the Workshop Committee (Workshop report 2021, p. 1), the Norland School Hall Community Centre in the same report as printed in the 2020–21 Annual reports (70-71th Annual Meeting Reports 2021, p. 8). Harrison “brought a handout on sharpening the usual tools head knife, French edger, Round edger, Shears etc.” Attendees tuned up their own tools, each taking home two sheets of abrasive paper; a French edger was raffled off; Lester Pinter worked on a braiding project alongside — “a mystery braid bracelet”. Eight people came, for a ten-dollar fee — the smallest workshop in this account.

The next workshop in the papers is at Norland too. The Workshop Committee reported “The Calico Clutch Purse Workshop in Norland on September 17, 2022” to the Executive meeting of 30 September 2022, naming the Norland Guild members who came; the Society's own newsletter says only that “everyone had a very creative day” (Executive minutes, 30 September 2022, p. 1; September–December 2022, p. 2). The Society's last workshop flyer is Norland's “Hinged Box with Lauch Harrison”, Saturday 1 March 2025, ten to four, at the Norland Library, 3448 Monck Rd — $15 for the workshop and $25 for materials, in 5/6 oz veg leather, with loaner tools available (Hinged Box flyer, 2025). No report of that day is in the papers.

Written for this archive from the Society’s newsletters, 1951–2023, and from the Society's own posted convention documents and workshop flyers, 2014–2025. The newsletter pages quoted are linked from the newsletter archive.