The Leather Bonnie

Hey all!  Still haven’t shown you everything I’ve made for Easter (TWO MONTHS AGO, geez, lady), but here’s a little something else I whipped up for myself.

Sometimes the pattern inspires and the fabric follows, and sometimes it’s the fabric that creates the drive to create.  The latter is definitely true with this make:  my first shot at sewing a leather handbag!

I’ve eyed the leather hides at Fabric Mart here and there in the past, but have never bitten because I couldn’t decide what I would make with them.  They don’t come around often, so when the Michael Stars goatskin hides showed up in full force a couple of months back, I decided it was time to figure it out.

This goatskin is so thin and supple and beautiful; it definitely seems thin enough to use with a home sewing machine, but my sewing it was not without issues (more to come on that).

The goatskin came folded up in large ziplock bags; when I’ve seen leathers in the past, they’ve been either hanging or on rolls; the folding did create some creases that I was unable to fix (I tried steam, which seemed a little wrong, ’cause leather, but did help here and there).  Many were unavoidable in cutting, but really aren’t so bad looking in the finished product.  There were also a few very severe creases along the edges that I had to avoid completely.

This is not my first rodeo at bag making (see here and here) but I by no means consider myself experienced in the art, and I’ve always used faux leather or home dec fabric.  I decided to let this beautiful leather really shine by going simple with the Swoon Bonnie Bucket Bag.  So simple that I even decided not to include the external welt on the bag; I was nervous for the possibility of effing it all up.

To make up for the lack of that external pocket, I sewed one into the lining of the bag.  I’m a little surprised that there isn’t a pocket designed into the interior already, but it’s an easy thing to add.  The lining of this is a lovely double faced very sturdy satin.  It’s sold out now, but this would make a very nice substitution.

This pattern is definitely a great introductory way to start making bags: it has very minimal notions needs (two O or D rings, 1-2 zippers, garment weight fusible interfacing, and firm sew-in interfacing) and creates a very nice handbag with clean lines in a very usable size.

I had two of the 8-10 square foot skins, and ended up using about 1 1/4 of them to make this bag fully in leather.  This pattern also has an option to use a coordinating fabric for one half of the body, but I decided to go full on leather for all of it.  The only part I cut differently from the directions was the inner top panel as seen above:  as written, Swoon has you cut this from your lining fabric, but I chose to use my outer fabric for continuity purposes.  It would’ve looked weird and even more home sewn with a blue satin upper inner edge, dontcha know?

Leather is certainly a snarky mistress; I had smooth sailing in some areas, and in others had some terrible looking stitching on the bobbin side of the stitches, no matter what I tried.  Unfortunately, some of this is visible from the top edge of the bag.  Since stitching leather creates perforations that cannot and do not “heal,” like fabric can, so I’ve left it for now for fear of weakening it by ripping and restitching.  BOOOO.

I have a Pfaff Performance 5.0, which does have a walking foot, but according to a Pfaff Facebook group I’m in, I would’ve benefited from a Teflon foot, going super snail slow in my stitching (instead of just fairly slow), and even greater tension than I used (I was at a 7; the default on my machine is 4.6.  A tension of 9 was suggested by the group).  I used Coats & Clark “Heavy” thread and used a bit of a longer stitch (3.5) and a size 18 leather needle, which cuts/pierces the hide more than a sharp would.

It was also suggested to me that leather of any thickness cannot be sewn on your typical home sewing machine:  that a specialized leather machine was required.  Your thoughts?  And/or have any tips for forging ahead without such dedicated equipment?

I feel like I’ve learned a lot but there is still so much for me to know about working with leather.  My machine definitely seems to struggle with it, so I may not revisit it in the short term, but despite my struggles, I’m really quite happy with this bag!

I’ve also entered this bag in the Fabric Mart Handbag contest.  I finished this bag in May but totally forgot to write my review, which I wrote in a grand total of 8 minutes from start to finish, submitting at 11:59 PM EDT, AKA the absolute last minute.  That was a spicy meatball!

Voting began yesterday, so if you’re a member over there and like the looks of how this turned out, I would love your support!  Please and thank you!  <3