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Posted

Hi folks. I figured I'd post this one up. It's black french calf with red french suede lining and Lampo zippers .Completely saddle-stitched by hand.

I'm fairly happy with it. In the future, I'm going to skive down the edges more. As is, the seams are too thick, which is causing the zippered area to 'bulge' upwards too much for my liking...

Feedback?

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Posted

I am loving it! Love the contrast of the red and black. Looks well made. Simply Beautiful.

"The only man who makes no mistake, is the man who does nothing." Theodore Roosevelt

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Posted

This is very nice. I think that some of the"bulging up" that you don't like will disappear when the bag is loaded with all the essentials of life :-)

Rosemary

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Posted

Hi nice work, for the seams use a hammer to knock them flat there are special hammers for this but you can use a cheap rubber mallet pull the seam flat the way you want it to lay and gently hammer along the seam, heavily skiving the leather would make it much weaker.

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Posted

Hi nice work, for the seams use a hammer to knock them flat there are special hammers for this but you can use a cheap rubber mallet pull the seam flat the way you want it to lay and gently hammer along the seam, heavily skiving the leather would make it much weaker.

Cheers, I'm going to have to try this. I did something similar with shoemaking; not sure why I didnt think to apply it here!

I agree on skiving. However, I made the mistake of running my veg-tan stiffeners all the way to the edge of the seam, rather than trimming them 1/4" shorter so they wouldn't be a part of the actual seam. In the future, I'll just skive the calf modestly and leave the stiffening layers out of the actual seam.

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Posted

Nice work. That's a lot of stitches there. Did you bind the inside edges of the bag? Looks like you bound it with the red suede. How did you do the turned edges for the zipper? Did you just turn and glue the edges over and then sew to the zipper tape or did you sew right side to right side to the zipper tape and the turn? Man, I can't imagine doing all that work by hand. I hand sew a bag lie that once but didn't do a lining. It was still a button load of sewing.

Andrew

One other thing. The leather is really nice. Where did you get it? Is it a veg tan calf or a chrome tan calf?

Andrew

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Posted (edited)

Nice work. That's a lot of stitches there. Did you bind the inside edges of the bag? Looks like you bound it with the red suede. How did you do the turned edges for the zipper? Did you just turn and glue the edges over and then sew to the zipper tape or did you sew right side to right side to the zipper tape and the turn? Man, I can't imagine doing all that work by hand. I hand sew a bag lie that once but didn't do a lining. It was still a button load of sewing.

Andrew

One other thing. The leather is really nice. Where did you get it? Is it a veg tan calf or a chrome tan calf?

Andrew

Yes, I just did a binding, like this. The construction in that picture might seem a bit odd (it is). This kind of construction is very new to me, so I'm having to improvise along the way.

For the zipper, I use a skiving machine to thin down the edge of the calf (as the calf is fairly stiff too), and then glued and folded. Then, I apply glue to the top of the zipper tape, as well as to the underside of the turned/folded edge, and stick them together.

The lining was quite a pain. Normally one would just glue it to the underside of the zipper tape, and then stitch all three layers (the outer, the zipper tape, and the lining).

I wanted a folded edge on the lining too, so I glued and folded the lining just like the outer, used my pricking iron to make the holes, and then stitched the outer&zipper to the lining. It MIGHT be possible to glue all 3 layers together before using your pricking iron, but I find it very difficult to maintain a consistent edge allowance when going through so many layers. I'm stitching at 10 per inch and small variations in distance from the edge will really stand out.

I hope that all makes sense.

As for the leather, talk to a lady named Amelia Corey. amelia.corey@charter.net is her email. She is based in Connecticut and is a N.A tannery rep (not a wholesaler) for Tannerie D'Annonay in france . Very expensive, full hides only in black or brown (both in stock in the U.S and ready to ship) and it's almost $12/ft, so you're looking at a few hundred dollars per skin. She will send you samples. "Vocalou" is what I'm using. Very glossy finish chrometan french calf. This is the stuff Hermes uses (they recently bought this tannery out). You honesty probably wont find nicer french calf, I think.Tell her Andrew sent you :) "Rusticalf" is also very nice, it is THE softest calfskin you can buy. Phenomenal stuff!

hope that helps!

Edited by conceptdiba
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Posted

simply beautiful work. Cheryl

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