Sewing a bag from recycled leather

The second of the Blackbird Fabrics Bestie Bags

Hot on the heels of last week’s Blackbird Fabrics Bestie bag, made in recycled waterproof material from an old coat of Andrew’s, comes this second rendition. This time it’s in recycled leather, salvaged from a set of dining chairs my parents were reupholstering. My Mum gave me the fabric to use and I’ve accidentally ended up turning it into a bag to gift back to her. If I’m honest, I’m not that altruistic, this project started off as a bag for me. Over time though, I realised it’s more up my Mum’s alley, and I plan to make a third version for me! That’s a sign of a good pattern I think, if you’re inspired to make three versions in quick succession.

The leather is brown, medium weight, and was borderline too thick for my machine. The biggest struggles I had were with the topstitching for the bag, especially along the strap tabs. At this point, I was trying to topstitch through upwards of 8 layers of leather, so unsurprisingly my machine struggled. I broke 5 out of 6 leather needles in the packet. There was a LOT of swearing. I ended up limiting the topstitching to the areas I knew my machine would manage, there is nothing worse than wobbly topstitching, with variable stitch lengths, right in an area in your immediate field of vision. I figured no topstitching was better than shit topstitching. I also finally bought a hump jumper (lol), which worked a treat for evening out some of the depth differences, as I sewed across seams and helped avoid the skipped stitches I always find frustrating.

The lining is a man-made fibre I’ve had in my stash for many, many years. I inherited it from Andrew’s Granny and have been keeping it for a special project. Unfortunately, I originally thought it was silk and was planning on using it to line a wool coat. I realised more recently it’s a man-made fibre, so I thought it would be best to use it and not treat it as too precious. I’ve got a vague plan to sew a wool coat for this winter, so I might use it in the wearable toile version. I’ve got some beautiful navy Harris Tweed I’m planning for my final version, and I definitely want to line that with silk.

The strap was it’s own nightmare to sew, again because of the thickness of the leather. The pattern has you cut one long rectangle, with a diamond end. You sew the long ends with the fabric right sides together, then turn it the right way out and top stitch. The problem with this method for my fabric, was the thickness of the strap was then doubled at one long side than the other. This made it impossible to sew into the strap tabs, where you insert the strap right sides together, sew together and then pull the strap through the tab to the right side. The height difference in the thickness of the fabric made it literally impossible for my needle to pass through the deepest point, hence multiple swear words and broken needles. I decided to go off-pattern and instead re-cut the long strap, without the diamond end. I sewed the long side right sides together to form a tube with both ends open, then turned it right way out and centred the seam down the middle of the strap. I topstitched the seam flat, which took some rolling and jiggling of the tube to maneuver into place, but then ended with a flat strap of equal thickness across the width. I then topstitched the edges of the strap, to create four lines of topstitching and a smart, solid strap. I actually really like how it looks, so it just shows that sometimes necessity is the mother of invention.

I cut the end diagonally, to emulate the original design of the strap, then backstitched over the cut stitch lines, to prevent them coming loose. I was worried the knot would be too thick and awkward in the leather, but actually I think it looks neat.

Overall though, I’m really pleased with this bag. Topstitching issues aside, I think it’s very smart and wearable. I’m going to save it for my Mum’s birthday so it feels satisfying to have ticked that off the sewing list so far in advance, even if it was basically by accident. I really like working with reclaimed leather, it’s so satisfying to make the most of this beautiful resource. I wouldn’t use new leather for ethical reasons, but I have no issue reusing old leather, rather that than it be wasted. I think my Mum will enjoy having a piece of her old dining chairs in a re-imagined form!