Birthday bag

The sister’s birthday was today so made a bag.

It’s a slightly modified version of a @hahn_atelier design:

I made the D-ring attachments slightly different, used a different connection between gusset and front/back panels and added a shoulder pad to the strap. But also, lined it, with french edging around the edges and the internal seams lined as well.


The french edging was made a lot easier with the welt knife.

Made a prototype initially using flooring vinyl.

But the real thing was made using Oceano coloured Maremma leatherv from Tuscany (from Conceria Puccini I believe) sourced from Tatra Leather and using Vinymo thread. Been trying that thread for the last little while and I’m liking it. Got some from Etsy and ordered a kilometre or so of it after working with it for a bit.… Read the rest

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Treading water

Just keeping busy now.

And got a new tool. Well. I say new, it was made in the 1950s in Germany, but never bought. New old stock is the term I think.

It’s a welt knife. For cutting welts, obviously. What’s a welt?

The problem is trimming the welt without cutting into the upper leather. The solution was the welt knife – it’s got a blunt runner of sorts on one side of the blade, you run that along the upper and the blade cuts the welt and only the welt. Why do I want it? Because you need to do that for a french edge, where the lining of a piece is glued face-to-face to the outside, stitched, then folded over the top of the piece to the inside, glued again, and stitched again.… Read the rest

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Holiday gifts

That time of the year again and I had planned to make some specific gifts. So I needed some specific leather 😀

All Italian veg-tan finished leather. Some of it is earmarked for a purse I’ve been prototyping, but the matt emerald green was used to make this Corter Leather pattern bucket bag for my sister:

And the ocean blue was used for a small backpack along with some nice suede for a friend in the US:

First time making a strap, that. It’s annoying that I’m still learning stuff quickly – every time I make something like this and look back at it, I see six to ten things I’ve since learned you should do…

Some of the pieces are more rustic though 😀

That one taught me that Americans have very small beer bottles – the pattern came in two sizes and the standard beer bottle size was smaller than this one and only fitted 300ml bottles, not our 330ml ones.… Read the rest

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