Alyssa has always been intrigued by art.  From a young age she created glass art, sewed intricate projects, built wood bird houses, and other hands-on artistic mediums.  She took various art classes, expanding her knowledge and trying to find her favorite art niche, all while learning practical applications from watching her family create beautiful but very useful household items like hutches, entertainment centers, and clocks.  Always playing outside as a kid and teen, being influenced by nature, her color palate and textures choices have always been earthy in likeness.

 

Continuing to expand her knowledge of art, she attended Academy of Art University in SF and earned her bachelors in Fine Art Costume Design.  The Academy allowed her to dabble in such mediums as metal arts, shoe design, corsetry, jewelry design, garment construction, illustration and more.  It also deepened her knowledge of art history and the business tactics behind selling your art, giving her a rounded knowledge to venture into the world with.  She then started work for a local bridal designer, Sarah Seven, and was her head seamstress and bridal consultant for some years until she decided that bridal was not the path she wanted to continue down, but is forever grateful for the learnings and teaching from this era of her artistic life. 

 

The knowledge of leather craft came after bridal, when she started managing for Tandy Leather in 2016, she quickly mastered the various techniques and forms of working with varying skins and different grades of leathers and taught it to various clients throughout her managing career.  Having the opportunity to work with different brands, and types of dyes, finishes, threads, leathers has helped give her the upper hand in the leather craft world in knowing what brands/techniques preform BEST.  She’s taken this skill and applied it to her knowledge of pattern making from school and has the ability to create next to anything with high quality craftsmanship, making practical and easy to use, long lasting leather products.

 

In January, 2021 Nomadic Knots officially opened for business, and hit the ground running that June with local vendor events around CDA, ID and Spokane, WA.  She loves stocking her booth with fun, useful, and unique products like bottle holders, sunglass cases, belts, functional suspender/harnesses, various keychains, earrings, and more.  She typically has a DIY hands-on leather stamping table set up at every booth event so others have the chance to come and create their own leather accessory-the designer loves sharing the craft!  Custom order are typically open for request (check out the “Custom Requests” page for more info!) And a schedule posting of her various events can be found in the “Events” tab!  Not close to Idaho/Washington?  See when the next Product Drop’s are on the “Shop” tab!