I've been creating leather goods for several years now but have only started woodturning in the last year or so. I enjoy working with leather but it does have its drawbacks: cost, space requirements (think of putting a small herd of cows in your work area), time requirements and a whole range of other things.
Now I enjoy working with leather as much as wood but let's face it, working with leather is a very expensive business indeed. Quality hides will cost up to several hundred £'s and indeed sometimes even more per side for specialty leather and that side of hide might only be enough to make 2 or 3 items. Projects will take a minimum of a day up for small and simple items up to several weeks for larger more complicated projects from start to finish!
With small item wood turning these issues don't really exist. I have several thousand £'s of leather tools, several thousand £'s worth of leather hides taking up a lot of storage space which I don't really have. For wood working I have several hundred £'s in tools and several hundred £'s in supplies for making goods. The space requirements for these items are less than 1/10 of the requirements for leathercraft tools and materials.
The big thing for me is self-gratification. Leathercraft is a long term thing as the project life cycle can be fairly long, up to weeks. I can turn 5 to 10 pens on really energetic days. What's better; self-gratification once every few days or weeks or many times a day? I pick many times a day
Don't get me wrong I enjoy leathercraft very much but I also very much enjoy woodcraft and I think the two compliment each other. For example, how about leather cases for pens? Or how about wooden ornaments or parts for a leather bag? Yep very complimenting indeed.
For me the real joy of turning wood is the smell. To me there is nothing like the smell of freshly cut wood. Each wood species has its own aroma. Yes that is the REAL joy.