Teal Leather Handbag

Quite some time ago I found a piece of teal kid leather at Sewfisticaed - it was a beautiful colour and so soft and lovely I knew I had to have it.

I knew that I wanted to make it into a new bag - all my bags are getting a bit old and I desperately needed a new one but I never managed to get around to making it up.

Then the Pattern Review website announced that it was doing a handbag contest so I figured that this would be the time to get going on this project. 

I figured that an all teal leather bag might be a bit too much even for me, so I headed back to the fabric store looking for some contrasting fabrics.  I found a nice grey suede that I figured would work great on the bottom of the bag - I wanted something a bit sturdier than the kid leather on the bottom.  I then found a couple of different cottons that would be a good match  - in the end I used the cotton with a zig zag print in striped of teal, green, grey, black and white.

The next step was to design the bag.  I wanted the bag to be small enough to use everyday, but large enough to fit my wallet, phone, keys, a water bottle and occasionally a book.  I decided on 28cm wide x 30cm high x 9cm deep.

It ended up being a bit bigger than I had anticipated, but that's not a problem. 

I  wanted a rounded top on the bag and sketched out the basic shape.  To continue the curve theme I added a curved seam where the grey bottom attaches to the teal leather, and then added pockets to the front and back of the bag also using a curved shape.

Then I had to figure out how to put it all together.  I created the basic pattern pieces and started cutting my material.  From the grey suede I cut a rectangle for the bottom, two rectangles with curved upper edges for front and back, and two smaller rectangles for the sides. 

I cut two curved teal leather pieces for the front and back and two rectangles for the sides. From the  zip zag cotton material I cut two full front and back pieces and a rectangle for the top piece.

To create the front and back pockets I then cut second pieces of the curved front/back pieces to face the teal leather.  

Then I had to think about what to line it with.  I had bought another piece of cotton that I thought I could use as a lining, but I decided that I was a bit to heavy weight and so rummaged through my stash and came up with a matching teal linen.  I cut the back, bottom and front from one piece and then two side pieces and a top piece.

Before I started putting everything together I decided to do a bit of embellishment on the teal leather.  A while ago I made a bag out of cream leather and teal vinyl, cutting out the leather to show the vinyl underneath.  I found the cut outs that had come out of that bag and decided that they would look really nice on the teal leather.   These cut outs were first glued in place and the hand stitched along the edges with a running stitch and two strands of teal thread.

Next up was procuring hardware.  For this I headed to the local Savers where I found two handbags that I thought could give me some of the hardware I needed.  From the first bag I salvaged 2 D-rings to attach the straps, 2 grey zippers - one for the top and one for the back pocket.  A zipper pull for the top zipper, a magnetic snap for the front pocket and the two leather handles that I joined to make one long handle.  

Once  I had everything it was time to start putting it together.  I started with the front and back pockets.  The first pocket was easy.  First I interfaced the zig zag cotton front pocket piece and then sewed it to the the teal leather along the top curved edge and then top stitched along that edge.  I installed one half of the magnetic snap onto the cotton (I almost ruined it here by thinking that I needed to install the snap in the teal leather.  I did cut a small hole before I realised what I was doing but a piece of interfacing ironed onto the back and you can't really see the cut anymore).  The backing piece of cotton was then interfaced and the other side of the magnetic snap installed and I basted all layers together around the outside.

The back pocket was a little harder as I wanted a zipper in this one.  I used the same basic procedure to put the pocket together, but installed one of the grey zippers about 1" below the bottom of the curve. I also made a lining for this pocket out of the teal linen so I could fully enclose the zipper.

I cut the top piece of the bag down the middle to insert the zipper into the main bag. The bag.  

Inside the bag is another small zipper pouch and two other pouches.  

This whole panel was salvaged from the second bag I bought at Savers and jut top stitched onto the linen lining of the bag.

All of the outside pieces of the bags were interfaced with a medium weight interfacing. I found at the end that I should have used a heavier interfacing for the zip zag cotton pieces as the top of the bag struggles to hold it's shape.

To attach the straps to the bag I stitched the D rings onto the side panels of the bag using scraps of the teal leather and then I bought some metal hardware to attach the  existing grey leather straps to the D ring.

I sewed the two straps together at the top using another piece of the grey leather salvaged from one of the other bags to hide the join. 

The straps could have been a bit longer, however I'm happy with the way this turned out.  I've been using the bag every day for the last couple of weeks now and i'm very happy with it.