Working with leather 2

Working with leather is far from easy. You need to be extra careful when cutting, because natural leather presents a lot of imperfections, specks, holes and uneven thickness. Also, any hole you puncture is permanent. Of course, there are tricks, and you can even unpick an ugly looking stitching, and redo it, but better plan your steps in advance. 

So my first bag was a transition from something familiar. I used lambskin left-overs and assembled a patchwork bag.

Aligning patchwork stitches was so complicated, that probaby, I won't be doing it ever again. Also, lambskin is prone to dirtying very quickly.

So this handbag from vegetable-tanned leather was the second thing I came up with:  

It was much more fun to work with. The only problem I had was with one of the handles, that I must have cut from the belly part of the hide, so when it was shaped in U-form  - it wrinkled. 

Also, I should have used a double-zipper.

Working with leather 1

Sewing leather clothes is not much different from sewing fabric, just have to be careful when cutting pieces, the sewing is done with a special foot, teflon or circular, and there's no ironing a seam flat, you open it with a hammer, yes, a hammer. But making bags is another matter altogether.
A big thanks to Ayako, who makes lovely colourful bags and totes, for showing me the tricks of this trade and letting me experience bag-making in her atelier near Paris.

Here are some photos of her working on a new collection of bags.

In this "sandwich", there are actually 3 different layers, the outside grainy leather, the colorful lining and between the two a reinforcement that prevents the handle from stretching. In french it's called salepas, or synderme, it is made from reconstituted leather.
All the parts that are subject to tension, such as handles, straps, bottoms and places where handles are stitched on the bag body, are reinforced with this material. Whereas cheap bags are interlined with fabric and sometimes even cardboard (!!)

Then the handle is top-stitched lenghwise, and the extra seam allowance is cut off.

The edge is painted, here with tinted wax.
And heated, so that the wax melts and you can't distinguish one layer from another. This operation can be repeated till perfection. The edge should be smooth and even. Personally, I prefer transparent wax, it gives a natural, raw finish.

Bag making involves a lot of glue. And since you cannot use pins - double sided scotch tape.


This glue is spread evenly on both parts of the "sandwich", left to dry a few minutes, and pressed tightly together.

Here you can see a piece of salepas reinforcement where the handles will be attached later, and the upper edge is folded over and hammered to stay flat. Notice how long it is, so that the top of the bag won't cave in.

This pocket lining is attached with double sided tape.

And top-stitched.

Just assembling together a bag takes 2-4 days. Combined with material price (30-80€/m²) this can easily lead to a bag costing your entire salary.

for the little ones

There are two reasons why I haven't posted much pottery lately. First, most of my "pottery" time is spent helping kids learn working with clay. Second, I've been putting much more effort into sewing than anything else, but since clothing is trickier to shoot than pots and cups, there aren't many photos :)
But anyway, here's some kids' stuff I had the occasion to sew recently:

It's intended for a baby boy. The patterns come from Astrid Le Provost's "Les intemporels pour bébés". Since last time I drafted baby clothes was more than a decade ago, I played it safe and followed a book, but the patterns seem kind of huge for the size intended (6 months here).

summer cottons

Have been doing a bit of sewing for my grandma. It's been awfully long since I last seen her, so the two dresses (here modelled by my mom) were made easy to fit.

My grandma as a young girl, on the left.




The longest part was doing those buttonholes. My machine (a Husqkvarna) makes really sloppy ones, so I had to embroider them manually. Argh!

Ikat pouches

For some years I had in my stash meters and meters of balinese and ouzbek ikat, just for the pleasure of looking at it ^.^
And now I finally had some courage to do something with it:




And something I would never ever dream of cutting up - a ceremonial sarong hand woven by a very generous brahmin lady, a month of painstaking work on a rudimental loom.

Making an embroidered pouch

First a muslin! Never start a project without checking your pattern first:

A blank page can be...

...like this!

Making a teapot cosy. Part 3