A new collection of textured leathers, shown in two finished – Crossroads Tipped and Crossroads Handiwork – will be on display at Townsend Leather’s NBAA booth this year.
Each of the leathers highlights the embossed texture differently, creating two unique looks that can be used separately or together in coordinating applications.
Townsend reveals this small-scaled, embossed woven texture has been very popular for upholstery applications and it is now offering this on leather in five colorways for each technique. As always, the company promises custom colors are also available in these new leathers, with a nominal up charge and minimal extension of lead times. Townsend says the aniline-dyed hides meet all industry standards and offer great cutting yield on 55-60 sq/ft cowhides. The leathers are all produced at Townsend’s facility in New York State, USA.
A couple of weeks ago the whole Townsend gang got together to say goodbye to summer, welcome in the fall, spend some quality time relaxing together and kick back. We had a PARTNER PICNIC and it was fantastic.
It was a real festival of fun! With lots of food grilled up by our grill masters, cupcakes, games and music. But we also held a company wide Fishing Derby and even had a dunk tank! It was great weather, great tunes, great food, and great people – so needless to say, it was a great time. Only the teeny fish were biting, but it was all fun anyway.
We love it when our customers contact us with comments or especially with photos of their completed projects, but it is a rare and exciting thing when a customer brings their finished project right to us!
We had the opportunity a couple weeks ago to see a custom designed private turbo prop jet interior up close and personal! An extremely proud customer contacted us wanting to show off his plane that featured our leather on the seats. He flew into the local airport and let us snap some photos. The special turbo prop was incredible and the leather was equally so.
The very small local airport is a beautiful place to take photos, and it was an especially beautiful day.
The plane is a 4 seater private experimental jet. It is super lightweight and super-fast.
The owner is a huge Pink Floyd fan and chose the design inside and out to match his fandom.
Two of Townsend’s leather were upholstered on these seats a handful of years ago, but the leather looks as supple and gorgeous today as it did then.
With speeds of 400 miles per hour and able to travel half way across the country in just a couple hours, it was no surprise that the visit was short and sweet. But it was worth it to see our hand crafted and much loved leather being used in such a beautiful and pride filled way.
If you have comments, photos, or want to show of your finished projects – let us know, we love to hear it and see it all.
This April Townsend Leather had a memorable and meaningful Earth Day celebration. We took time to honor our past and time to plant flowers for our future.
We had a silly fun time throwing “seed bombs” at our President and SVP of Production (scroll to the bottom for pics). The future we planted for has arrived! At first we doubted if anything would grow, it looked like we had planted two nice weed gardens. But with all the sun and rain we have had over the past few weeks, everything started to pop! and pop it did! We have two beautiful wild flower gardens out in front of Townsend.
There are a wide variety of flower types and colors and they look fantastic as a group.
Might make a nice leather collections too, don’t ya think?
Original post…
Townsend Leather had an exciting time celebrating Earth Day 2015, balanced with fun and meaning.
Townsend is so lucky to have such scenic beautiful property. We spent part of the day outside in our company pavilion next to our pond enjoying food, conversation, and the great outdoors. Our annual event focused on having fun and enjoying the beautiful area we live and work in – our own backyard.
Not many people can say they work at a place with its own pavilion, outdoor seating areas, grass to walk in, trees to sit under, plants to admire, a creek to listen to, and even their own pond! But we are so grateful for our access to nature and this day we fully enjoyed it.
After some food and relaxation, Jared spoke to the group relaying the news of our newly awarded 2015 Top Work Place recognition and excitement for the impress team we have.
We then, as a company, took a moment to reflect on Townsend’s past and honored the late great matriarch of Townsend Leather, Dorothy Kucel.
When we are all fed, we will gather by the Red Memorial Park sign, to take a moment to reflect on Townsend’s past and to honor the late great matriarch of Townsend – Dorothy Kucel.
Dorothy, Red Kucel’s (Townsend Leather Founder) wife / Terry Kucel’s(Chairman of the Board/Townsend Legend), Louise Kucel’s (Shipping Leader), and Kevin Kucel’s(Director of OEM Aircraft Sales) mother / Sarah (SVP of Sales and Marketing) and Tricia’s (SVP of Customer Service) grandmother, and relative or friend to countless other… was a founding member of Townsend Leather and instrumental to its history and lore, she passed away this past fall.
Townsend Partners honored her legacy and memory by planting lilac bushes (her favroite) at the Red Kucel Memorial Park (Townsend’s pavilion/park/backyard).
After honoring a Townsend legacy we took some time to honor the earth, in one of the strangest and funnest ways we could. We had prepared to garden areas in front of our main building and then we setup for fun! Using “Seed Bombs” from our friends on Etsy we planted wildflowers.
How often do you get to throw dirt clumps at your boss?! We planted wildflowers by throwing them at our President and SVP of Production! They were kept safe with custom made cardboard shields and face masks, but as soon as we said the word go a storm of seed bombs were launched their way!
Most were hand thrown, but we also had a handcrafted catapult on hand to give the seeds some extra umph!
Jared and Jeff were great sports about it and kept the fun going until the last seed was thrown.
We worked together to press the seeds in and jump start the growth.
It was tremendous fun with lots of laughs and good times. Watching the smiles on everyone’s faces as the seed bombs were launched and exploded against Jeff and Jared’s shields (and sometimes heads or faces) was a delight. This is an impressive team of people who so willingly join together to make fun and meaningful moments happen. We can’t wait for next year!
You’ve got a real nice pair!
Of colors that is.
Nothing makes your favorite color better than another color. One of the most distinctive and memorable aspect of any design is the color choice. You can completely change the feel and direction of a design through a thoughtful and effective color pairing.
Certain color schemes are iconic and recognizable.
Others are more tonal and bring a sense of cohesiveness, bringing more attention to changes in texture or other aspects.
Dull and stark white designs can suddenly be full of life and message when paired with the right “pop” color.
And some schemes seem to work against each other, but somehow make it work.
What are your favorite pairs of colors?
Even our leftovers are beautiful!
Things are a little quieter than usual this week since we have turned our production focus to improvements and celebrations, see: Townsend is Proud to Celebrate Freedom this July 4th, but there is still plenty happening around Townsend. Just for fun and to show off some truly impressive skills, our Sample Magicians have been at it again! Creating another tasty masterpiece from leather.
You may have seen their extraordinary Taco from a couple weeks ago (you can see it at the bottom of this post: Sample Magicians) this time they were inspired by the backyard bbq’s and 4th of July foods from the past few days, and put together a scrumptious looking leather burger and fries!
They hand crafted the burger, fries, and fry container out of Townsend Leather scraps!
Giving a whole new meaning to revitalized leftovers!
This silly quick scrap leather project is not just super fun, it is also a fantastic showcase of Townsend’s Sample Team’s unparalleled skills. They pulled this together in a matter of minutes, but still put their well honed color matching, texturing searching, project feel distilling skills to use. They found just the right shades of colors to look recognizable and appealing.
They searched out textures that added fun and realism (look at that burger patty! It really looks like ground beef!). And they got to the heart of the idea, they presented to project in a custom made fun package, giving the whole thing a sense of playfulness and delight. They even made it so you could get just your “taste”, with all the fixin’s or just a plain burger!
Yum!
This super team is always happy to serve you!
This 4th of July is especially one to celebrate and we at Townsend are truly looking forward to it!
Townsend Leather has been so very busy lately with new ART&D developments, work with our exciting brand new Stacy Garcia partnership, the launch of rich and full new product collections, parties, 5Ks, events and so much more. So, we are looking forward to slowing down this weekend and taking a little time to reflect and relax.
Each year, Townsend takes the week after July 4th to give focused attention to enhancing and improving. We spend the week doing maintenance, cleanup, machine improvements, and other efforts to make our leather production even more impressive and effective. We also encourage all Townsend Partners to take some time off, to spend with their friends and family, reflecting on the year so far and filling up each of their pie slices that make them a complete well-rounded, unique, and interesting complete pie-chart of a person. Therefore Townsend Leather will be closed on July 3rd, 2015 to celebrate our great country, and production teams will be working on maintenance and improvement until regular leather production ramps back up on July 13th.
Townsend Leather annual production shutdown: July 5th- 13th.
Being a US manufacturing company, Townsend Partners always have held the 4th of July in high regard and have had hearty celebrations for it, but this year it is even easier to have pride in our country and celebrate the greatness of our people!
With the historic and moving ruling from our Supreme Court in favor of nationwide marriage equality happening just days ago, the positive #LoveWins vibes will surely still be palpable during Independence day celebrations this weekend.
We are proud that our country has taken action toward the ideals that will be celebrated this weekend.
This Independence day we can proudly celebrate that we as a country, as a community, as Americans are one step closer to a country of equality, a country of independent thought, a country where we can truly honor these words as the reason for our celebration, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
This is a historic moment for the United States, we are proud to bear witness to it and have the chance to reflect and celebrate it, and all things American, this weekend.
