Back in 1970, having decided she wanted to be an artist, Pat Halpen took a job in what she describes as a “hippie leather shop.” Today, Pat may be best known for her butter-soft bags in glorious colors and unique designs, often combined with rich tapestry and gemstones.

“I kind of learned on the job and found I had a talent for it,” she says now. She bought an industrial sewing machine with $500 in wages saved from babysitting and branched out on her own. “This is what I’ve done my whole life. I started doing craft shows in 1974 and never looked back.” That sewing machine is still in use.

Pat also designs and creates innovative jewelry, mostly earrings and bracelets, of special leathers, beads, wire, and gemstones. Her work can be found in her shop at the Windmill Farm Market (3900 NY-14A, Penn Yan) from the last Saturday in April through the last Saturday in November each year and at Handwork Artisan Cooperative (102 W. State Street, Ithaca), and online at Etsy year-round (etsy.com/shop/skypathdesign).

Pat learned how to choose the leather she wants to work with via sight and touch. “It has to be a beautiful color in the right thickness,” she says. Starting with a full hide, she’ll cut it for the components of the bags she wants to make, then casts a practiced eye over what’s left. “I don’t want to waste any of it,” she says, so, to elevate the style, she’ll combine leathers, often adding an ornately tooled accent or heavy upholstery-weight fabrics in complementary colors, and beads or gemstones.

“Then I found really gorgeous leather in a different weight than used for purses,” she says. “That’s pretty exciting.”

That find reawakened her dream of creating jewelry. Currently, “earrings are my favorite thing to make,” she says. Inspired by nature, she works in a studio with large windows, sometimes venturing into other craft media, then bringing those skills into her work with leather.

“I’m obsessed with beautiful materials,” she says. Whenever she makes a piece, whether it’s a purse with useful zippered compartments or a whisper-soft, brilliantly-colored pair of earrings, “I think of all those things I want them to be,” she says. “I want them to be practical and last a long time.

But my main concern is that they be beautiful.”