Repairing Vintage Purse Lacework

[Dove]

Hi everyone! I've never done leatherwork before.

I bought a beautiful vintage leather purse that has significant wear on the lacework in some spots.

A coworker does do leather work, and gave me a book called "leatherwork manual by al stohlman and others" as well as some lace, a modeling tool and a 2 prong needle. He identified the lace style as a double stitch and showed me the section in the book on splicing and how to do a double loop.

My questions are: how far into the old lace should I remove to splice in the new lace? I want to do each repair while retaining as much of the original lace as I can. I don't want to relace the whole purse. Do I just pull the old lace out? Please see attached photos regarding the worn areas:

Edited March 21, 2014 by Dove

[JLSleather]

Personally, I'd replace it all .. no splicing to the old. You may notice from the book, you'll need to remove 4-5 stitches each side of each break to tie in anyway, and by the time you 'fix' all of that, you've got a bit many splices (thus, lots o short pieces).

[Northmount]

And you may have trouble matching the lace colour and quality. So yes, replace it all.

Tom

[craftsman827]

if your realy set on just splicing , check out http://kingsmerecrafts.com #96 shows lacing & splicing, also has a video.

But that said, I agree with JLS, redo the whole bag.

[Dove]

Would it be possible to relace just the front panel without going around the entire back panel. The tape measure sits at the joint between the actual purse and the front flap panel. The damage starts at the joint and is spattered around the front flap. The back panel (behind tape) has no torn lace. I am mostly concerned with taking apart the "bag" part and then not being able to connect it again. The only other damage is on the inside panel on the bottom corner which I think could be spliced in.

Damaged corner on inner panel is seen in top right of below image.

here is the entire back. It's 16x11" squared off.

The book mentioned nothing of gauging lace length, but I read online you figure 6x your length? The front panel is 10x11" squared off. The lace I have is 170" in length.

I guess I'm just afraid to pull the "bag" part apart and then not be able to put it back together.

Furthermore, the leather along the edges (where I pulled out some lace) feels kind of dry. I was also given some mink oil and saddle soap, should I put one or the other on before lacing? It looks like the outer decorative leather has a thinner leather along the inside it's softer but I don't think it's suede.

Eta: after pulling some of the old lace out, the stitch looks to me more like the "running" stitch than a double loop. It just goes under and through the loop, makes another loop and through again.

Edited March 21, 2014 by Dove

[Northmount]

You can pull out as much lacing as you wish. If you get into an area where it is holding 2 or more layers together, you can use small zip-ties every 10 or so holes so everything stays aligned.

Tom

[electrathon]

I would also relace the whole thing. You will never match it if you don't . Kangaroo is the best lace (yknotlace). You did not say if you are going to do this because you want to... If you don't, buy me roll of kangaroo and I will replace it for you.

Aaron

Edited March 21, 2014 by electrathon

[Chief31794]

Got to agree on a complete replacement, all of the lace on this item appears to be well worn and after a successful patching job, I fear you would continue patching for some time as the old lace continued to deteriorate. It will look real nice with new lace. I agree with Electrathon on Kangaroo, however, if that is too expensive then the second I would recommend would be good quality calf skin lace. 1:6 lace length ratio is not sufficient, most books claim a 8:1, I have always used a 9:1 to make sure I get to where I need to be. This lacing stitch is the Double Loop Stitch.

Chief

[Dove]

Thank you all for the replies!! I'm going to take a stab at it. I'm not sure what type of lacing coworker gave me, but I can ask him tomorrow as it seems I'll need a great deal more. I'm also having a lot of difficulty pulling the "eye" or pronged part of the needle through the hole, if I use pliers and pull pretty hard it'll go through. Could this be because the lace is too thick, or just how it is?

Era: while watching a video I noticed they skive the lace, which I didn't do, which I assume is why it's too thick at the needle head.

Edited March 21, 2014 by Dove

[Northmount]

Skiving the end of the lace will help, but you may still need to use pliers occasionally.

Before you do much work on the purse, recondition the leather so it is a little more pliable. Else you may start getting cracking and even tearing out some holes. Don't pull outward putting strain the lacing holes, pulling through the edge. And when you get all the way around to make the final slice, pull out a few of the starting stitches so you get the slope of the lace consistent across the splice. The first few stitches are usually too vertical, so need to come out.

You should do some practise lacing around a piece of leather say about 4x4". It will help you a lot with the purse.

Good luck.

Tom