Simple "t" Slot Tote

[rawr66]

Here's a simple t-slot tote I made recently out of oil tanned leather. Tandy had a sale last month and I was able to pick up a blemish free 22 sq ft piece of leather. I would have bought another, but the rest were riddled with markings.

It came out fairly easily with a couple of minor issues. The main thing that I don't particularly like is how wide the straps are. They would have worked out much nicer with a filler to give it a tube shape or if I didn't glue the entire strap together, but I'll keep working on that.

By t-slot, I mean cutting the bottom and side in much like the t-slot of a wallet, only smaller.

Edited August 7, 2014 by rawr66

[Grumpy Coyote]

Very, very cool. Tell me more about that t-slot?

[rawr66]

Grumpy, the bag is made out of two pieces of leather with two cutouts on either side of the bottom of the bag. I cut out 2 square inch pieces off of each bottom side, sewed the sides and then sewed the bottom, and then flattened the pieces of leather and sewed them together. Here's a fabric tutorial you can check out for the basics of it.

[thefanninator]

Did you glue and stitch it inside out? If so, how'd the glue take to the finished side?

[rawr66]

I didn't glue any part of the body. I lined up the pieces together, marked a stitch line, and then punched my holes down both pieces of leather. I just made sure they matched up along the way.

[MonicaJacobson]

Nice, and thank you for posting the tutorial. I was wondering how you did the t-slot part. You must be waaay better than I am at punching holes without the leather sliding around. Veg tanned is so much easier to work with because it doesn't stretch and move.

[rawr66]

Monica, here's a quick diagram I made up to try and show you how I did the t-bottom. This is my very first tote so I don't know any other way to do it, but here's what I did. First, you want to stitch the sides together, and then stitch the bottom. Then you want to lay the leather flat and stitch it together. From what I've seen, people say to have the seams opposite of each other to cut down on bulk. I didn't do it the easiest way either; I had to play around with it a bit to get it stitched together, but it turned out good for me and I'm sure there's probably an easier way to do it. I used 4 oz oil tanned leather and the marked part probably could have been skived down a little to make it easier. Here's a tool that may be beneficial to making this kind of bottom with leather and a video on how to use it.

[MonicaJacobson]

Thank you for the in depth explanation! Still, I think I'm going to have to fold some paper later to see what happens with those corners properly.

[thefanninator]

Correct me if I'm wrong... I'm figuring this out too.

Pic #1 two pieces... "stitched" inside out.

pic #2 Grab the square cut outs and open it up.

pic #3 pinch together where you're going to stitch.

After the stitching is done ... turn right side out.

Is this correct?

[rawr66]

Thefanninator, that's how I did it. Except I didn't leave the seams straight up. I pushed one down on one side, and pushed the other down on the other side.

[MonicaJacobson]

Sweet! Thank you guys!

[rawr66]

If you have the patience for skiving chrome tanned leather, it'd give a much nicer look to stitch the pieces together, and then take the seams and glue them down flat.