hi melissa, the leathers are drying now. a friend and i have harvested berries about 4 times this month. they get sweeter and sweeter! we run them thru a squeezo. in the 1st run thru, the juice runs right past the pulp. this is where all the bitterness lies, and it's discarded after it sits in a pitcher so the finest pulp can settle out and be used. the seeds are run thru a 2nd time for a really pureed pulp. this i eat raw, add to yogurt, or freeze. the 1st pulp has lots of pooled juice that i drink raw,freeze, or add back to the pulp and cook up with some sugar for leathers. we're experimenting with all combos. the seeds are edible but don't clean up well. even cooked and dried, they get fibrous after chewing. don't know what to do with them. i know they are invasive but i'd rather get rid of poison ivy and bittersweet. the usda has studied autumn olive as a possible crop- they are loaded with lycopene.
another discovery for me this year was purslane. i let it become a living mulch under the tomatos and peppers. good raw in salads or cooked as a green (-but not as delicious as those sweet potato leaves !!). i dried some and what i read is true-purslane is a thickener, in soup and spaghetti sauce. eat free !

eSearching to see if leather can be made of the Russian olive as well...
One author gave a nice descriptive account of the Russian variety, and changed topics in mid paragraph! So I'm still confuddled.
Is Russian olive edible or useful in any form? Leather? Oils?