Hello guys. I completed my second bag on Sunday, and I'm pretty pleased with the finished product. In other posts, I've asked questions and have been so grateful for advice and recommendations, but I decided to put the pics here in a separate post because I wasn't sure which of the other "help me out" posts I'd put these in!
Some of you may know that I'm totally new to leatherworking, and ANY sort of sewing. I'm using TC Albert's book and patterns. My first bag attempt was the "double" pattern in that book, but I decided that it was too small to serve as my primary shoulder bag, so I turned that one into a belt bag.
This second bag follows his primary pattern for a single bag, but I modified it as follows: I added hair-on Axis hide from my first ever deer, shot years ago, with professionally tanned hide sitting around in a closet waiting for a use! I expanded the pocket using Albert's optional expansion piece (I forget what he calls it). And I did use welt, but cut from a thicker strip of leather, so that was a challenge to sew.
Here's a picture of the whole bag, with the companion belt bag beside:
A little closer up, you can see that I carved out a heart in the Axis hide. I did this for three reasons--first, there was a hole in the hide there from overly aggressive skinning. Second, I wanted to go as period as possible, and not use glue to attach the middle of the soft/supple tanned Axis hide to the stiffer leather underneath. It was recommended that using a cutout shape could enable this (thanks!). Third, I see a lot of references to the heart shape in these bags, so thought it would be neat.
Rather than inserting a piece of red flannel, I dyed the leather red and then "muddied" it a bit with a little of the dark brown dye I had. In person the heart is not as RED as it appears here...
You can see the inner-flap stitch work here, and get an idea of the welting. My craftsmanship is by no means professional, but I can see progress even from just the first bag. I did not use a stitching wheel for the heart, or for attaching the shoulder straps.
Here are a couple close ups of the buckle work.. again following TC Albert's guidance.
Learning how to work with leather has been a fun journey this Winter. I'm not sure what my next project will be, but I do enjoy this work.
Huge thanks to several on this forum who have followed my posts and taught me much. And I have to post another plug for TC Albert's book. If anyone out there is like me, with a curiosity about this work and a wee bit of craftiness in them, buy his book and give it a whirl! The cost of the leather and hand tools is not huge, though not insignificant, but it's totally worth it for the custom piece.
Some of you may know that I'm totally new to leatherworking, and ANY sort of sewing. I'm using TC Albert's book and patterns. My first bag attempt was the "double" pattern in that book, but I decided that it was too small to serve as my primary shoulder bag, so I turned that one into a belt bag.
This second bag follows his primary pattern for a single bag, but I modified it as follows: I added hair-on Axis hide from my first ever deer, shot years ago, with professionally tanned hide sitting around in a closet waiting for a use! I expanded the pocket using Albert's optional expansion piece (I forget what he calls it). And I did use welt, but cut from a thicker strip of leather, so that was a challenge to sew.
Here's a picture of the whole bag, with the companion belt bag beside:
A little closer up, you can see that I carved out a heart in the Axis hide. I did this for three reasons--first, there was a hole in the hide there from overly aggressive skinning. Second, I wanted to go as period as possible, and not use glue to attach the middle of the soft/supple tanned Axis hide to the stiffer leather underneath. It was recommended that using a cutout shape could enable this (thanks!). Third, I see a lot of references to the heart shape in these bags, so thought it would be neat.
Rather than inserting a piece of red flannel, I dyed the leather red and then "muddied" it a bit with a little of the dark brown dye I had. In person the heart is not as RED as it appears here...
You can see the inner-flap stitch work here, and get an idea of the welting. My craftsmanship is by no means professional, but I can see progress even from just the first bag. I did not use a stitching wheel for the heart, or for attaching the shoulder straps.
Here are a couple close ups of the buckle work.. again following TC Albert's guidance.
Learning how to work with leather has been a fun journey this Winter. I'm not sure what my next project will be, but I do enjoy this work.
Huge thanks to several on this forum who have followed my posts and taught me much. And I have to post another plug for TC Albert's book. If anyone out there is like me, with a curiosity about this work and a wee bit of craftiness in them, buy his book and give it a whirl! The cost of the leather and hand tools is not huge, though not insignificant, but it's totally worth it for the custom piece.
