Making a fully lined leather handbag - full build with PDF template!

hey guys and welcome back my name is James and today we'll be going through how I make this little lady's purse or hip bag or shoulder bag out of fully lined veg tan leather it was really fun little build to make and ice especially enjoyed how these little edges turned out or how their the sides turned out here I learned a few things along the way hopefully you guys learn along as well if you have any comments or questions feel free to ask them in the comments below and I'll do my best to get back to you as fast as possible that eyes and enjoy the build so as mentioned I am using a combination of two layers of vegetable tanned leather I'm using one point two millimeter and one point four millimeter veg time now that both times they'll be sandwiched together resulting in basically every side being two point six millimeters thick the outside will be handled so dyed green with fibers Pro die green Pro die in this case I did wet my leather first I usually use neat's-foot oil to wet the leather as it brings back some of the natural nourishing oils into leather that's often needed but this time I use just plain simple water to see if it made a difference and went in with the needle afterwards to be honest not a huge difference so I don't know I do I think I'd stick with the needs for oil first and just step skip the the water step as you can see there was a small spill but not a big deal it did result in the leather being slightly dark in one area at first but that's quickly evened out just with the dye drying out and rubbing out for most of it and then with just a different coats of oil and wax it's off light spreads out so no way is there for the inside pockets I had selected the first piece but to be honest I decided to discard this and go for something better because the first piece just wasn't up to scratch it had some issues with it which I wasn't happy with and I decided to go for a brand new spanking new clean piece that would work even better just simply because want this back to be as pretty as possible and the piece I had was not do was not right for this I am going to be doing turned edges and this is the first time I'm doing it I wasn't totally sure how to go about this whole process ultimately it worked out okay ish I think the biggest lesson I have is make sure you skive those edges to the smallest size possible I am using the one point two millimeter leather here and even for that one point two millimeters to turn around is really really really tough so I Skyped it down to maybe 10.45 maybe millimeters thick before actually turning it and even then it was hard so if there is one lesson I I learned through this process is first of all make sure that your scabbing knife is really really sharp because there is a lot of skiving and the sharp at the knife the faster it goes secondly make sure you scab off much more than you think is actually necessary I didn't expect have to scare off this much and ultimately this was the only way I could get it to work so rolling edges will turned edges of a simple once your edges already just roll them over glue them down and stitch now the reason why you might do this generally you don't do this with vegetable tanned leather simply because you can burnish the edges and it's not necessary to do this but one reason you might want to do it is if your edges are not getting burnished or I'm not going to be edge painted or edge coated then it's a way of getting really nice clean edges now often people will do this on Chrome tan leathers and other types of leather stuffs are not a vegetable tanned the reason being simple that you cannot burnish a chrome tan leather the way you'd burnish a vegetable tanned leather and you may not want to apply edge coating or edge painting to your piece for any number of reasons other reasons may include simply if you're making a garment for example your leather might be incredibly thin in which case to get a really nice edge to just way and if it is Finn this is indeed very easy to do would be to rolled the edge in my case I just wanted to challenge and try something new and I thought that this would be the best looking result for a pocket and also the sturdiest I didn't want that edge to start unraveling the fibers on coming loose after the first two uses if it were had just been burnished so instead I went for the rolled edge I have decided to use middle the mid a door Sofia simple shoe polish here or simple polish really for all of my stuff for me that really is what works best not only does it nourish to another it also protects it very very well from scuffs small marks from way rain sorry from weather it really does a great job not only does it protect it but it also shines up the leather it keeps in the keeps in the pigment soil of that die and it just does an incredible job at making this leather look absolutely gorgeous so I go ahead and do this on all my pieces bear in mind I've got the inside the outside of the main body of the bag and I got the inside and outside of the sides of the bag now one thing I haven't mentioned yet is that for I did mention that I had two different thicknesses of leather at one point two millimeter 1.4 millimeter now on most of it on the the main body of the bag my one point four millimeter leather is the outside area of the bag the difference is on the sides where you'll see me cutting this side slightly wider than the inside so the outside will be slightly wider than the outs than the inside so that my leather is not perfectly lined where the stitching area is going to be the reason for this is that I want the outside piece of leather to be able to bend at the stitches and provide a really nice gusset this is why I'm going to be cutting the outside piece a bit larger now that means that where I used one point four millimeter leather on the outside for the main body of the bag he on the sides the 1.4 millimeters other is actually on the inside which means the undyed piece you're seeing here is actually the one the thicker piece whereas the thin piece is going to be on the outside so just bear that in mind if you're going to be duplicating this you can do it and I will be doing it for other builds with the same thickness leather inside and out one point two millimeter it would be my next next build and I think that should be plenty sufficient but I did want it to be slightly sturdy at this one as it was a first test and I thought that I'd need the one point four on the outside this is what it looks like before it gets so door stitched sorry and this is what it looks like after it's been stitched I am using Maisie linen thread I believe it's one of the best foreheads I've met so far I've found so far I've tried just a few ones and this is for me the nicest I've found as you can see it gives me a really simple really neat looking edge that's just nothing more to say about it rolled edges just for some situations they're just really really great and I have to say for a first time I was very pleased with the way this came out and I did not expect it to be this easy I don't know if I should say easy because it wasn't as easy as I expected but it certainly wasn't complicated to do and I would definitely recommend you trying it out if you want it your self force if you want to try and get that edge finish for yourself and you can see just what I'm talking about here the idea was that's my outer edge which is thinner than the inside lining would be able to be more pliable that way when I first saw a stitch the lining to the outside and this results in the first row of stitching which will look very nice on the end product but the reason I wanted it to be more supple is so that the edge gusset will bevel my sin on bevel but will mold nicely to the piece and you may be able to hear my girlfriend vacuum in the in the background and I apologize for that this is going to be the outer part and as you can see test drive it just to check where the hardware is going to go I'm not using anything very fancy here just a simple little clip which you can find that most hardware stores make sure you measure it out perfectly because once those cuts are made there is no coming back so you want to be very very careful and double-check every time before cutting I go ahead and mark out where my next holes will be and starts pushing in the leather because yeah indeed as a pockets this leather needs to be prepared in advance for where it's going to fold and I wanted to make sure that my stitching was going to be as easy as possible to do so I had to press it down at first and it has leaved a bit of a mark but that can rub off quite easily mark down where you're stitching Holmes will be take your time doing this again once your holes are done you can't really go back so it's a crucial part of the build I am using crimson hides pricking irons or stitching irons and I find them to be absolutely gorgeous day give me a very clean cut they're very easy to use and I do recommend them one of the things I I found when I started off was I could never actually get the all to to make the hole the way I wanted it I for some reason I've ever been taught to master proper old technique to get proper saddle stitching and therefore I quickly opted towards pricking irons that would basically make the holes for me in a very nice neat way and you can find them in kind of be cheap online and I definitely would recommend starting there if you're getting into leather however upgrading to something like this and now this is basically what I'd call close to professional quality pricking irons here and the price is certainly much much heftier I mean for the price of one pricking iron I could buy at least ten of the cheap ones but for me it's seriously upgraded my game and it's made my work looks so much better and so much easier and overall it's been one of the best investments I've made in terms of tools in terms of knives yes you could always argue the best knives are better but it's not what's made the biggest difference in the quality of the final results to me having better knives is great it certainly helps cut it helps out and he helps keep better but if you're not worried about having to sharpen your knives on a regular basis then or even just change the blade of a Sharpie knife or I'll show you call those but to be honest you can buy very basing eyes and do great work with it but what's changed the quality of the result for me most has been the Crimson hides stitching irons or stitching is picking ons that's it pick knives here I'm going for a very very round edge on all corners of my piece to be quite honest maybe next time I will try something that's not as round for the inside keeping the outer flap nice and rounded out maybe but having smaller curvatures on the inside of the bag for the next few builds but it's not bad at all the way it is and to be honest I really like the result so once i've ever da jiz i do give them a quick pass on the sandpaper just to make sure that they are looking as good as possible and once this is ready comes a crucial crucial part which is basically marking out where my stitching holes are going to be and hitting the holes through again be very careful of this step simply because you can easily leave a mark on the leather that's going to stay there for quite some time so just take your time here there's no reason to rush and it's one of the most important steps to getting a really clean stitching line as you can see here all my holes are punched and I'll be able to stitch up the sides of the bag to the main body and you're getting a preview here of what the sides will look like yes there will be two stitching lines and that is why I'm using very heavily contrasting colors in threads versus to die because I really wanted to play around with that stitching line go ahead and dye the edges and again this is a crucial step to take your timer because I'm using undyed leather on the inside any mistake here could totally ruin my piece I cannot take these two pieces of leathers apart my my my pocket is sewn in and I am basically ready for the last few steps of this whole build and I cannot you just certainly cannot allow yourself to mess up the edges on this if the two piece of leather inside and out were dyed the same it really wouldn't matter but in this build it's incredibly important to keep those edges clean and be very careful not to dye the inside and once it's stitched once the outsides so once the the the sides of the bag is stitched you can go ahead and of course admire your work but also check that everything is sitting perfectly and it is you can see exactly what I meant by having those two layers of leather on the side it does give me a very nice with Judah T on the side without making it so without adding in some extra weird shapes and I'm very very happy with the way this turned out so once that's done carry on preparing your edges here getting rid of some of the excess leather that has built up from that from pressing it down in the corners basically go ahead and give us another small light coat of dye where you've had to get rid of leather to make sure that the dye is even all around again being very careful not to get dye on the stitching and so at this point I stitched it all the way around before buffing before burnishing zorg and for the burnishing process I am simply going to be using gum trag tragacanth gum you could also use token all which is a fanfares out that i stopped and tried it yet but I have to get my hands on some to try us out and you could either use a slicking stick not slightly coil it's basically piece of wood notches in it that you might use to slick the edges to burnish the edges or you could use the way I did with a cloth and this will give you a nice looking really really clean looking edge like this one here and it's the most effective way of preparing your edges now bear in mind this only works for vegetable tanned leather because it still has oils in natural oils and the keratin from the leather is still intact and it will not work on chrome tan leathers waist not as far as I know that is why you have to use edge paint on on Chrome tan leathers whereas you can do this with vegetable tanned leather as you can use this burnishing technique for vegetable tanned leathers so there you guys you see just let the gum track seep into that leather just very slightly before burnishing go ahead then and give us a coat of beeswax to be able to put an burnish once more and this will really help protect your piece right now I am making the buckle attachment straps for the buckle attachments for the strap and this is quite simply by having two strips of the same green leather reinforced in the middle here of one's extra strip of just simple leather just because I wanted to make sure that it was really nice and sturdy and that it wasn't going to fall apart on me go ahead and stitch it all up prepared the edges I mean nothing fancy here is just basically rinse and repeat and one thing that's how will not show you on the camera is how I made the strap it's very very simple you'll see it your seat at the end but I won't go into the details of how it made it cuz it's really really simple so if you're if you've got questions about that that you can't figure out exactly what happened just by watching a video feel free to leave them in the comments below I'd love to be able to answer you they're attaching these were quite simple this isn't not Leslie the way I'd initially imagined attaching it to the bank but to be honest it really works stupidly well I am using what you call Chicago rivets or Chicago screws which is basically it looks like a rivet it's not it's just screw it goes on on both sides and it holds really really firmly very happy with the result and at this point my bag is basically made it's basically done it's finished and I'm very happy with it but the last thing I always do to any of my pieces before sending it out to a client is giving it one last coat of protective wax just to again clean it up you know clean up the piece before you send it off and protect the leather from anything that might happen to it but yeah final inspection looking looking very good and glad about that pocket inside it's gonna be very useful I love the way the sides turned out and I just loved the quality and the the color of this dis is all satchel this is all hit back there you have it guys this is how I make these little bags I've only made one for now but I'm hoping to make a few more in the upcoming weeks and months either in black brown or even a lovely blue there is an electric blue which I've really enjoyed playing around with and I think this will be the perfect build for it they will be up on my Etsy page hopefully you can go and check out the pictures and all the details there if you're interested in supporting a new channel don't forget that Ettie is a great way of supporting me you can pick up some lovely little card holders everything is made by hand by me here in Paris and if you're wanting to support the channel but not ready to invest in anything just yet feel free to hit the subscribe button leave a like leave a comment these things really helped me out and meantime as always if you have any questions about the bills or about what I've been doing throughout the video or anything really in general go ahead and leave them in the comments below and I make my do my best to get back to you in the meantime guys I'd like to thank you for joining me on this build again I like it subscribe go a long way to helping my channel grow and hopefully you've enjoyed and I'll see you very soon for another bit of leather craft [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music]

Channel: James Berry - LeFrenchCrafter

Views: 170,299

Keywords: james, berry, leather, leatherwork, vegtan leather, diy, handmade, how to, make, making, template, homemade, craft, how, handbag, hand bag, shoulder bag, satchel, shoulder, clutch, lady's, woman's, woman, lady, bag, green, lefrenchcrafter, le french crafter, crafter, french, free, pdf, french crafter

Id: i0g8FYLY1Dk

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 18 2020