Reclaimed Leather Pieced Together

[Northmount]

I would try laying the pieces out on a table, flat.  Then try to arrange so they overlap and fill the area you need for your panel size.  Trim the overlaps where needed, glue and stitch.  May need to cut some pieces in half to fill voids on the edges.  The pattern doesn't need to be repeatable, could be completely random.  I think stitching them face to face and turning them face out would make the piece quite bulky and it may not lay flat.  That's why I would do overlapping seams.

Try a small panel and see if it works the way you want.  Then let us know the best way you come up with.  looking forward to seeing photos of the results, both as panels, and as a finished project.  Good luck.

Tom

[billybopp]

While used footballs are probably somewhat plentiful for you, they're still a limited supply.  Try tracing the shape of the leather on paper, or better cardboard and cut 'em out.  Use those to experiment with your layout to find something that works and when you've figured it out use the real deal.

Bill

[onelooneyzeta]

These are all great ideas! I like bygyyns idea.

I do think that they'll have to be laid flat.  Face to face would be too bulky. 

over laping and laying them flat, would a saddle stitch be my best bet?

[Northmount]

Saddle stitch or machine stitch.

Tom

[onelooneyzeta]

Any suggestions for helping to flatten these panels back out?  I mostly make small goods and have just worked with curved nature of the leather.  But, for this project it would really help to get these panels flattened out.

[JMixx]

On 11/10/2017 at 9:57 AM, byggyns said:

If it were me, I would do the center of the front, back, and flap on the bag with the ball panels arranged vertically next to each other. then use more panels and trim them to fit the gaps between the whole panels. That way you have the full panels as a focus. Maybe mix and match and use the panels with the logos & lacing as your central focus and the plain panels as the fill ins.

A layout like this, with the red ovals as the full panels. I know the shape of the panels is not quite an oval, but it should fit a little like this.

If you offset those ovals, so the narrow end of one row of ovals tucks into the gap between the narrow ends of the ovals in the row above, there's hardly any space left to cover.  But do you get those regular ovals when you flatten out the football? Slicing up one 3-D image leaves you with one similar to the one below.  I wonder if  pieces shaped like the one below could be offset and "meshed." (If that makes sense...)