Deptford Leather Crafting Workshop: £65 Keyrings, MW Makes

MW Makes offers three fixed-price leather crafting workshops in Michelle Wong's studio at Cockpit Deptford, 18-22 Creekside, London SE8 3DZ. The shortest is Make your own Mini Envelope and Keyring, two hours for £65 per person. The middle option, Card Wallet and Keyrings, runs three hours for £95. The longest, a Wide Envelope Crossbody Bag, takes six hours and costs £225. Dates are booked through the calendar on mwmakes.co.uk.

Wong describes MW Makes as a leather goods brand by an architect-maker, and the training shows in the products. Her pieces are built from simple geometries and clean lines, many of them folded envelopes rather than stitched boxes. She works only with oak bark and vegetable-tanned leathers from British and Italian tanneries, using saddle stitching and hand burnishing, so the leather darkens and takes a patina with use.

She set up the brand in 2017, according to her maker profile on Holly. Cockpit, the charity that runs the Creekside building, says she won The Leathersellers Award in 2022, which came with a subsidised studio there. In 2025 she received a Heritage Crafts bursary to train with saddler Nigel Armitage in bag construction, wet moulding and box stitching, and her site notes she was away 11 to 16 October for that training.

The £65 mini envelope and keyring is the right first session. Two hours is enough to cut, punch, stitch and finish a small folded pouch without rushing, and you leave with two pieces. It is also the class Wong took on the road on Saturday 26 September for a group session at Pophams Home on Richmond Road in Hackney, where the coffee and baked goods came from the bakery.

The £95 card wallet and keyrings adds an hour and a more useful object for daily carry. The six-hour crossbody bag at £225 is the one to plan a day around. Our view: do not jump straight to the bag if you have never held a needle, because six hours of stitching at a bench is tiring, and a wobbly first seam is more forgivable on a keyring than on a strap.

Because Wong works with oak bark and vegetable-tanned hides, expect firm leather that holds a crease and burnishes to a glassy edge, rather than soft, floppy chrome-tanned skins. That matters for the envelope designs, which rely on clean folds. Bring a sense of the colour you want, since tan and natural leathers darken quickly in daylight and with handling.

Every product on her shop is made to order with a lead time of one to two weeks, which tells you something about pace. The workshop is the faster route to owning one of her shapes. If you love the result but want a larger piece made by her, the shop takes orders and you can note a deadline at checkout, which is handy for birthdays that come up before the next class date.

Wong also runs custom workshops for groups and lists team building, hens, stags and birthdays as examples. She can host at Cockpit Deptford or travel to a venue you choose, and asks group organisers to email michelle@mwmakes.co.uk to discuss dates. That flexibility is the main difference from the other leather teacher in the building, Yusuf Osman of YUSSICO, whose public class caps at four students.

There is no published phone number, so all contact goes by email or the booking calendar. If the public dates are full, the group route is your plan B: two to four friends can often arrange a session more easily than a single person can find an open seat. For a weekday alternative south of the river, The London Leather Workshop in Charlton runs a three-hour introduction for £108.

Cockpit Deptford is on Creekside, a short lane on the west bank of Deptford Creek. From Deptford Bridge DLR station it is roughly a six-minute walk north, and Deptford mainline station is about nine minutes away. Greenwich, on the other side of the creek, works too if you are coming from the river side.

The building holds many separate maker studios, and the workshop is in Wong's own space rather than behind a shop counter. Keep the confirmation email open so you can message her if you cannot find the right door. If you plan to make the crossbody bag, bring a tote or a sturdy carrier, because a freshly burnished bag deserves better than a coat pocket on the walk back to the station.

Rather than heading towards Greenwich, turn the other way after class and walk up to Deptford High Street, one of south London's busiest market streets, with grocers, pie shops and a long run of independent cafés. At the top of Douglas Way sits The Albany, the arts centre and theatre at Douglas Way, London SE8 4AG, which hosts family shows and gigs.

Closer to the studio, Creekside itself has the Laban Building, the Trinity Laban dance conservatoire, and the Creekside Discovery Centre at 14 Creekside, London SE8 4SA, a small creek-side nature reserve with tide-dependent walks. The Discovery Centre's own directions mention Little Faith Brewery and the Gaff Cafe on the way up from Deptford Bridge, which make an easy coffee or beer stop before or after you stitch.

Address: MW Makes, Cockpit Deptford, 18-22 Creekside, Deptford, London SE8 3DZ. Prices: Mini Envelope and Keyring, two hours, £65 per person; Card Wallet and Keyrings, three hours, £95 per person; Wide Envelope Crossbody Bag, six hours, £225 per person. Booking: online calendar on mwmakes.co.uk. Contact: michelle@mwmakes.co.uk. No phone number is published.

Custom group workshops are available at the studio or off-site. Lunch is not part of the six-hour class, so plan a break on Deptford High Street. The Karpo APP can suggest a café near Deptford Bridge for a pre-class coffee and a market stall lunch for the long bag day.