‘Here’ is a free-standing two-car garage converted into the company’s workshop when the couple bought their home this spring. For the first five years of the business, the business was run out of a spare room in their apartment, “a 9 x 11 room,” Asa said, “with two very large sewing machines and two work benches. And Harley, our dog.”

“If Harley was in there and we were both working at a workbench,” Amanda said, “you could barely move.”

Amanda was working a horse farm, making horseshoes as a blacksmith, when she met Asa, who mentioned he was making leather belts. To which Amanda replied, "Well, I want a leather belt. I want a studded leather belt."

It was, Amanda continued, “like the third belt he ever made and I wanted like eight million studs on it and this wild pattern. And so of course he's like, ‘Yeah, no problem. I can make that for you.’ And then I kind of started coming up here and was hanging out in the leather shop, just making small things like earrings and key chains. And I said, ‘All right, let's make some bags. We could really do some cool stuff and I think people would really be into it.’”

Then came the lockdown in 2020.

“A big thing to me,” Asa said, “is that something you use every day… if you care about such things, it should be handmade. Somebody should put a lot of thought into it. It shouldn't be just something, ‘Oh, it was cheap. It was on sale. It's going to fall apart in two years, but I don't care.’ For people that really appreciate it, I feel like they appreciate the time that goes into it, the thought that goes into it. And we love making stuff for people that appreciate that. It's very fulfilling and rewarding to see somebody out in public or up in Maine wearing one of our bags.”