I saw a lot of people here mention daggers for raising the smithing skill, but I don't like that. So what I do is I get my bow and go on a big hunting session out in the wilderness of Skyrim and get all sorts of pelt and hide to make leather equipment. What I find awesome about this is that you get to do a lot of exploring and find some pretty neat stuff =) Today I found 2 dragon walls, had my first fight with a blood dragon, killed 2 normal dragons and randomly found a named one that I had some giants kill for me (I killed the giants after and took all their stuff. Did you know they sometimes carry pretty good hide/pelts?). As an added bonus, you raise your sneak and archery too since you have to sneak up on those deers/bears/sabre cats... Farm cows give you a lot of leather ... Just don't get caught >D

Neat idea. Plus, I'm starting to think blacksmithing is a bit overpowered since I'm not lvl 25 and I kill most ennemies in 1 or 2 power hits and I kill dragons in about 10 hits at Elite difficulty. Might need to go on Master.

Making blacksmithing more difficult to level up using your idea is a good way to keep the game more challenging.

why do people take daggers over leather bracers though? i never understood that lol

Easier to get the materials? I think it feels more realistic to actually look for it instead of buying every lingot in from every blacksmith and making daggers in front of a very confused smither (...is that even a word...?)

Both are fine options. It is just whether or not you want to spend time killing all of those animals or if you want to just powerlevel it with the use of gold.

Yeah =P I personnally prefer the hunting since it doesn't cost you anything (keeping that gold for that 25k gold house) except arrows which you can loot from bandits you find on the way and lets you explore. I feel like I'm taking my time more than before.

iron and leather are both pretty plentiful. Blacksmith Vendors sell a pretty good quantity of leather and iron. If you make daggers, you're using one iron ore and one leather strip (1/4 of a leather) for each item. if you make leather bracers, you're using one leather and two leather strips (1/2 leather) for each item. if you have large amounts of both that usually means you make make far more daggers than you could leather bracers.

I read about the smithing exploit and did it on my first character. Instantly ruined the game for me.

This does sound like a good idea! I haven't looked into smithing at all, really, so this will be a good way for me to get started!

Well, yeah. But it keeps it challenging =P And if you prefer making daggers, there's always to option of going out and mining it yourself (saving money, YES) =D I personnally prefer the hunt over mining since it lets me get better sneak and archery too.