2 leather genoa totes

Hello, I have something very fun to share with you today. Not one but two leather bags!

I was contacted by Anna a couple of months back with a link to her new Genoa Tote pattern, which is what I'm showing you. I must admit that I don't love getting freebies because I can feel my creativity dropping when I feel obliged to use something, but I did not feel like that with Anna at all because it was a fairly casual exchange where I felt she wasn't expecting me to use her pattern. I was thinking of making a bag anyway and found it useful having a template!

On the note of freebies I am reviewing something next week, which is unusual for me, but again I really wanted to make the project for me so it was a joy not a chore ;-)

As mentioned above I used the pattern as a template, but I constructed it how I wanted to because I was using very different materials.

This bag was the first one I made in leather and was a gift for a friend. All the leather was bought on eBay and is reclaimed as it's offcuts that were being sold second hand. The strap leather was reclaimed of sorts as it was an offcut thrown in with something else I bought new! It's thick metallic olive green and is perfect for straps. The kind of thickness used for stachels.

The main front has a reverse applique design from some screen prints I have designed and used many times in the past. I sewed everything on my Pfaff Passport 2.0 with a leather needle in and walking foot engaged and it sewed very easily.

I backed the main back front and back with horse hair canvas for a bit more stability and I really like the structure it has provided. I also made the inside zip pocket a lot longer than the pattern.

I preferred to stitch my straps in place rather than use rivets. I punched the holes in a design to echo the cut outs and stitched them on with a thick waxed linen thread. I do have screw in rivets that I could have used, but I prefer this look! I also left the top edges of the bag cut raw rather than folded over as it looked neater than trying to grapple with the leather to fold over nicely.

The leather facing on the top of the lining only has one join (I didn't use the pattern piece for this) and it is joined flat with a piece of horsehair layered underneath to keep it together and reduce bulk. My leather needle snagged the lining on this one a bit which is a shame, but hopefully it doesn't show quite as much in real life!

Oh look, also my pockets are constructed differently! I don't mean to change everything, it just kind of happens as I try to use things from my stash. My red zip is an open ended one, so I had to cover the bottom of it. Rather than make a pocket with the seams on the inside I bound the edges with bias binding which does the double duty of covering the raw edges of the fabric as well as the opening bottom of the zip!

Next up is more of the same with more reclaimed leather. The orange is actually from my old handbag I am replacing as is the key chain thingy. The yellow strap leather was bought new (the metallic olive leather for the above straps was thrown in with this order).

Oh how I love this bag!

The only thing missing was a matching purse right? Sorted and with co-ordinating cut outs!

I made a very simple little bag which I just marked out straight onto the leather and sewed up. The lining is hand stitched to the inside of the zip.

A little flat gusseted bottom for a bit more room in there.

This was so much fun and sewing leather on my machine was way easier than I thought it would be. I would be interested to see if my old Toyota would handle leather with the correct needle, although the feed has always been a bit uneven on that one and there is no walking foot so I probably wont bother.

A review of sorts, but not really as I'm notoriously bad at following other peoples instructions. The pattern in general is very well put together and the instructions look very detailed, so although the pattern is simple you get a lot of guidance on how to make a really nicely finished bag. Hopefully this will provide you with some inspiration for what you can do to personalise your own bag or if you were thinking of working with leather then maybe this gives you some ideas of how you can make it more individual! No blank canvas is safe!!!

Look Dad I made a leather bag!

Me, me, I made a bag!!!

My Dad gave me some red leather quite some time ago now. Definitely more than 10 years, but not sure when. He bought a leather hide from a local tannery in Devon to make an apron for his workshop for if he was welding or something like that and gave me the leftovers.

It had been folded and moved from place to place ever since that time with no purpose at all. I have tried to work with leather before, but this is really thick. It's the kind of thickness that is used for satchels, so completely unusable for clothing or trims.

It wasn't until I found the leather the other day that cogs started to turn and ideas started brewing. At first I was thinking very ambitiously and thought of making an Orla Kiely inspired animal shape and then I thought a house, but finally I thought that I should calm down and bring it down a notch. I hadn't the faintest idea about how to work with this thick leather, so was getting way ahead of myself.

After reading a post about a bag kit on Tillys blog I decided a simple shape was needed. I actually borrowed alot of ideas of construction from there too.

I have a satchel already that I used to use alot, so took my bag dimensions from there. I quickly plotted a template on illustrator and stuck it to the leather with double sided tape. I thought that this would be easier to cut around if they were stuck in place, although I wouldn't advise that on leather with a special finish to it.

I cut the pieces out with a metal ruler and a scalpel (the blade would carve into a plastic ruler)

I then took the pieces over to my sewing machine, removed the thread and punched holes along the edges to be stitched. My theory was to make the holes and then handstitch the bag together. I would never get a neat machine stitch on this and I would struggle to push the hand sewing needle through the leather, so this was my way of mimmicking the bag kit that Tilly used.

 I used some thread to hold the bag together at certain points and to check that it would fit together ok...

Then proceeded to handstitch. By the time I got to this first corner my hands were sore. The holes I punched were still too small and only made it marginally easier. The stitches also looked pretty messy having gone back over this line to fill in the gaps and make it look like a machine stitch, so I decided to brave it on the machine. It was not possible to machine stitch it all, as I couldn't persuade the leather to flex enough to fit under the foot, so I stitched most of the straight edges and hand stitched the corners.

Even though I was using a childs thick cardboard book and a cotton reel to help push the needle through, my fingers are still really sore. If anyone can offer any leather sewing tips I would be very interested.

 I got some bag hardware (is that the correct term?) from Merchant and Mills with my last order, as this had been on my mind for a while, so had fun attaching the bag handle. I couldn't cut a strap piece long enough from the leather I had left, so cut it in two pieces punched some corresponding holes and screwed them together with these chicago screws. I also used these to attach the handle to the bag. So satisfying and no dodgy stitching required.

The front flap was originally curved at the corners, but I decided this looked strange somehow and tried to give it an envelope look. It now kind of looks like the back of a normal bag! To fasten the flap down I used these screw-in Sam Browns. Don't you just love this stuff? I could get hooked on using these little screws.

I punched holes for all these little bits with my leather punch, which was just from some cheapo hardware store many years ago. The holes on the front flap to push over the 'Sam Browns' have a slight slit cut at the top to expand the hole over (if that makes sense)

In all honesty, this is not the best thing I've ever made, but it's usable (and I will use it) and it's made use of something I never thought would come out of the stash, so I'm happy! It actually looks ok and a bit vintage, but if you were a stickler for neat stitches then the finish on this might drive you round the bend.I did have more photos to offer you of dodgy stitching and also what it looked like before I changed the shape of the front flap, but I seem to have deleted these ahead of time, so you'll just need to take my word for it!

So, if after all that you are interested in making a bag yourself then I have uploaded my template for you.

CLICK HERE FOR BAG TEMPLATE