Bag Ladies Swap

The challenge for the August Bag Ladies Swap was to create a bag that would have you use a new technique or material. I decided that I would use the use piece of purple leather that I have had sitting around here since my last trip to Toronto. I puled it out and went to the 'Making Leather Handbags', published by FIT, that I have had for a while. I should have read it before I decided to use this leather.

There are a lot of tools and skills that you have before you work with leather. The glues can be very toxic, the needles are deadly weapons, there are multiple weights of leather and there is no such thing as second chances. I experimented with a simple, simple pattern for an eyeglass case and realised that I would need to do lots of stitch samples before I made the final product. Here is a picture of the eyeglass case plus the other materials I used in the swap bag:

I ended up using a design from 'Making Vintage Bags' by Emma Brennan for the final product. I can't show you the final product as it is a secret until my partner in Ireland gets it. The best part about this experiment is that I still have some of the purple leather left so I can do one for myself and anyone I want to inflict with my experiments.