Thread: Homemade leather bags.

Originally Posted by MickR

...And if I was to market them, they would be priced out of the market just on time spent. ....Mick

There is the single variable that explains why custom craft work is expensive. OTOH you can't put a price on the therapy you got from the project.

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

There is the single variable that explains why custom craft work is expensive. OTOH you can't put a price on the therapy you got from the project.

Shouldn't.that read "therapy you need after the project"

If a custom maker of anything were to figure out hrs involved in creating a one of a kind item and money was of import.
One might come to the realization that you would be money ahead working at the local carwash for minimum wage

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

There is the single variable that explains why custom craft work is expensive. OTOH you can't put a price on the therapy you got from the project.

Originally Posted by edhewitt

Shouldn't.that read "therapy you need after the project"

I'm with Ed on this one. I assumed completion today, but I spent so much time cursing the damn thing last night, I decided I would slack off a bit. I'm going to end up in therapy otherwise. I'm making a satchel bag for sure, but it isn't looking like I had hoped it would. It's starting to remind me of an old time camera bag or perhaps a single motorbike saddle bag with a shoulder strap. It's looking good...In my opinion at least...Just not looking like I had thought it would. Then again, planning on this project has been ad lib, so I have no one to blame for anything. It's all my own doing.
As a side note, my eldest daughter has given a hand on occasion. She's used the pliers to pull the needle through on some tough stitching, just to try it for herself, and last night she tried using her fingers to pull the needle through, got the needle pinched at the eye on the way through, gave it an almighty tug and stabbed me in the chest. I had half an inch of needle sticking into me. It hurt so much, I burst out laughing! What else could I do?! I didn't want to traumatise the poor kid by squealing like a stuck pig. It was one of those moments where you could see it was going to happen. I even said, "Don't stab me, don't stab, don't stab me!" Just before she stabbed me.
I'm better today though, a little more relaxed after a good nights sleep, and seeing the end in sight...

Maybe post some pictures tonight, or perhaps tomorrow. Whenever it's close enough to complete to look it. I can see I'll want to do a bit more with regards to decoration, but I'm just not sure what sort of artistic track I want to follow yet. Perhaps when I post the 'finished' photo and the 'canvas' I have to work on can be seen by you lot, someone might come up with a few ideas to help me on that path. I need a theme to follow.


Mick

It just wouldn't be right unless there was some blood sacrificed...LOL.

There has been a little of that for sure Mike. And when I make a knife! Nary a bloody drop, if you'll excuse the pun...But on the rare times I do, I make up for the loss of blood shed on the previous jobs.

No photo's tonight. Doing a little more ad lib. Tomorrow afternoon should see a finished product photo.


Mick

Well here it is. Just needs to be oiled now, which has already been started since I took the following photo's. Giving it a waterproofing with a beeswax dressing. For the photo's I filled it out with a square cushion in the main section, a large soft stuffed doll in the front pocket and two pair of thick hiking socks in the side pockets.













Mick

That's a pretty nice bag Mick ! I'm impressed. I haven't been keepin up, what will you be using this for primarily ?

Just an everyday satchel mate. I'm in the habit of throwing the things I consider necessary for day to day use in a satchel bag. I hate having things in my pockets, so I put those few things like wallet, Credit card/club cards etc. book, mobile phone, lighter and what have you in my shoulder bag. And having kids I find that I stash other odds and ends in it as well. Things like newsletters from the school, spare clothes, hats, both theirs and mine etc. all gets put in as needs be. then when I'm on the bike I shove in a spare pair of goggles/glasses, flat cap, pipe and tobacco, reading book...All the things a boy might need for any given situation really. I always have a pocket knife in my bag and a travel pack of tissues as well.
My old bag is starting to wear in the corners, being made of 'oilskin' cloth, and copping a beating on the bike all the time, is really testing it out. It was made for motorcyclists, and I've had it for a few years, so it has done well considering. Now though, I felt it was time to have a new one, and when I started looking at the prices of bags...I was shocked at the prices! I decided I'd do better just to make one. Original inspiration was from the 'possibles' bags used by BP shooters from times past and present, and size ways, I was looking at something a little bigger than what I had seen of those, but smaller than the bag I currently carried. I could fit a whole slab of beer in my current bag...And it seems this bag has turned out to be just like it's predecessor...Providing I shard a few beers out first perhaps . I really didn't expect it to be as big as it has turned out, but it has turned out to be the bag it wanted to be in the beginning, so I'm still quite happy.
I've learnt a few new tricks in the process of making it as well, and that has to be a good thing! There have been quite a few after thoughts and ad libs along the way. Originally all seams wee going to be internal, that Dee ring on the back was going to be a grab handle, then I decided to put that handle on the top of the bag and the making of that was one of those new tricks I learnt. I made it out of scrap leather too...Well leather that was off cuts really and with a core of round plaited 'roo hide. Yes, it just had to have a bit of 'roo hide in there somewhere didn't it?!
The biggest time consumer...All the stitching that went into it. Everyone of them put in by hand and most of them doubled, some single and fewer still triple, but every one a saddle stitch.
I now have separate pouch's for a mini Maglite, Leatherman tool, monocular (of the long distance viewing kind, not the 'jolly good old chap say what' kind), pocket knife, sharpening stone and Bic lighter as these are things I'm invariably looking for when I rummage around in my bag. I also have a separate internal pouch for my music books and a sewn down loop in the straps on the main lid to slide my Low D Irish whistle.
What more could a man want. And as my 'quip of the day' I'll say; It's only a Man Bag if you made it yourself. Everything else is just a bloody handbag!


Mick

I like the part where you said " it turned out to be the bag it wanted to be." Everything sort of has a soul don't it now.