So, something a little bit different here today.

I made a handbag.

An actual leather handbag.

Which, being dark navy, is  really difficult to photograph nicely!

Sorry, guys!

Local inspiration

So here’s the backstory.

One fine spring day I was exploring the seasonal fabric market in town. It travels around the Netherlands and is in my hometown twice a year – around Spring and Autumn.

From a distance, as I wandered around on a sunny Sunday morning, I saw an intriguing and colourful-looking stand. Eager to check out the fabric I got closer and closer. But upon arrival I realise that it was not fabric at all.

Not fabric but leather.

An entire stall of beautiful pieces of leather from leerkwartier – in all the colours of the rainbow!

I started chatting to the vendor, wondering whether a normal home sewing machine could handle leather. His (honest) answer was – well, it depends on the machine.

Not one to be daunted by reality, I decided to purchase a navy calfskin hide which was not too thick and give it a try. Together with a little scrap piece. Here were my purchases:

But wait, here is the kicker, he also told me that there was someone in my own hometown who offers classes on how to make leather handbags.

I was sufficiently intrigued that I had to find out more!

This is the joy of sometimes stepping away from the online world and visiting sewing-related things in real life. I would never have dreamed of looking at leather online…

Enter Mrs Rosehip

The very next week (no, I don’t have a tendency to get over-enthusiastic), I attended an evening ‘basic leather techniques’ course with Roos van Put (aka Mrs Rosehip). Who was kind enough to run the course in both Dutch and English so that I could attend…

You can find all the details of the available classes here.

Mrs Rosehip is a former journalist turned designer with a lovely range of her signature-look pleated leather bags. And she offers a range of bag-making classes, in both English and Dutch.

The basic class was a lot of fun. I managed to walk away with a very shoddily stitched little hip bag.

And a strong desire for more…

BTW, this class was my first time ever using an industrial sewing machine. It was so much fun! I  felt like I was driving a car. Aaaah, what I wouldn’t give to have access to some kind of lovely studio space to use…

Hard-surface cutting tables. Industrial machines. Shelf-space everywhere…

The dream!

Stubborness is a virtue

So, back at home, I was determined to see what my home sewing machines could do on the leather front. I’m nothing if not stubborn.

And so this handbag was born.

The design, of course, is extremely simple.

I knew I wanted something minimalist. So I basically cut out a fabric muslin and played around with different ways of folding and assembling it, until I was confident I knew what I would end up with and knew the order in which I would need to assemble it.

Then, I hit ‘go’ on the leather itself.

Leather takes the lead

Working with leather, you are very much limited by the specificity of the hide in question. In this case, I had to cut the hide on a diagonal to obtain pieces that were long enough to be straps. It’s actually really annoying when you can’t simply join pieces together to make something long enough to be a strap! I imagine that there may be more flexibility if you make an adjustable strap in two pieces, but that felt a step too far given my current skills levels.

Figuring out how to line the handbag and include pockets was just way too far out of my experimental comfort zone. But I did find a couple of other ways to still make my handbag practical. I stitched in a loop on which I’ve placed a key holding thingamabob, together with a larger loop which is the perfect size for my phone. The outside pocket is the perfect size for my wallet.

As long as I can always access these essentials my ‘searching-for-things-in-my-handbag’ rage will be minimised to manageable levels!

I deliberately tried to include as few seams as possible, unsure of what my machine could handle. Whilst I started with my 1975 bernina, thinking that an older model may be better, it couldn’t really handle the few places where there were three layers of leather to sew through. My trusty old basic el cheapo brother did a better job.

Mixing it up

I really enjoyed doing something different.

These days, while I’m always proud of my sewing, it’s not that often that I have that “WOW, I actually made this with my own two hands” moment. This one definitely gave me that feeling.

It’s a real leather bag!! Made by Moi!

I also really enjoyed the fact that I did something where I started totally from scratch. No pattern. Just a flat piece of fabric to cut and fold and play with until it looked like what I wanted. Even though this handbag is very simple, it felt very satisfying to have creative ownership over every aspect of it.

To the rabbit hole?

While I immensely enjoyed this project, I’m not sure if leather bag-making is a rabbit hole that I am willing to let myself fall down. I have realised that it is pretty difficult to get a professional-looking finish in leather on home equipment. While this is fine for a first bag, I feel like over time I would become frustrated by my lack of equipment.

And, well, leather hides are expensive!!! Compared to fabric at least. And when I think of how many pieces of fabric I messed up before I started being regularly satisfied with my sewing, I definitely can’t afford that steep a learning curve with leather as my material!!

So, as fun as this was, I think that this sewist is going to stick to fabric.

Or maybe I should try my hand at learning shoe-making.

I do still have a few pieces of scrap leather I picked up at the market left…