Good Bag making book/patterns

[Aresioh]

I need help. I have a full side of pull up leather that I purchased over a year ago with the intention of making myself a weekend bag and matching dopp bag, and I can't get myself to cut into it. I have yet to find a pattern that I like, and I'd hate to start only to be disappointed. I've searched this website for ideas and the web for patterns but nothing. Has this ever happened to anyone? What did you do to overcome this fear? I really want to make one, but I don't want to have a butchered hide if I mess up. 

PS I also promised to make my wife a leather bag as a 3rd anniversary gift... a year ago as well. I have a pattern for that, just scared to start. <face smack>

[Spyros]

Make a tote for her, just to build up your confidence and get into the headspace. 

Totes are pretty and handy and very simple to make, and there's really no rules with regards to measurements or sizes.  Just get some basic dimensions (there or thereabouts) from an existing bag, do a pattern on a piece of paper, cut a couple of straps at your wife's usual lengths and off you go.  Countless videos on youtube and basic pattern ideas if you just google images.  Get a little creative with the dye and the hardware and you can have a very nice result without too much heartache.  You could even make a tote without stitching at all, just rivets everywhere. 

[toxo]

6 hours ago, Aresioh said:

I need help. I have a full side of pull up leather that I purchased over a year ago with the intention of making myself a weekend bag and matching dopp bag, and I can't get myself to cut into it. I have yet to find a pattern that I like, and I'd hate to start only to be disappointed. I've searched this website for ideas and the web for patterns but nothing. Has this ever happened to anyone? What did you do to overcome this fear? I really want to make one, but I don't want to have a butchered hide if I mess up. 

PS I also promised to make my wife a leather bag as a 3rd anniversary gift... a year ago as well. I have a pattern for that, just scared to start. <face smack>

https://www.leather-patterns.com/shop/bag-patterns/2

[billybopp]

8 hours ago, Aresioh said:

I need help. I have a full side of pull up leather that I purchased over a year ago with the intention of making myself a weekend bag and matching dopp bag, and I can't get myself to cut into it. I have yet to find a pattern that I like, and I'd hate to start only to be disappointed. I've searched this website for ideas and the web for patterns but nothing. Has this ever happened to anyone? What did you do to overcome this fear? I really want to make one, but I don't want to have a butchered hide if I mess up. 

PS I also promised to make my wife a leather bag as a 3rd anniversary gift... a year ago as well. I have a pattern for that, just scared to start. <face smack>

LOL!  Yes!   Pretty much everybody that has made anything has faced that dilemma.   Whether it be an expensive piece of leather for us, some expensive wood for a woodworker, expensive canvas and paint for a painter:  Getting started is often half the challenge!  I've even gone so far as to have a piece of wood in a vice, saw in-hand, just to suddenly be overcome by doubt and stop for a week or two!   But eventually I got to it and everything came out fine.  

Maybe this will help you along ..... Here's a Round Tuit for you

.

- Bill

[Retswerb]

I bought a leather covered journal probably 15 years ago at a farmers’ market, before I was into leatherwork myself. As the seller handed it to me he said, “don’t let it be precious - use it!” Those words have stuck with me in so many ways. Even when $$ is tight I remind myself that I need to not let my things, my supplies, my valuables, become precious. They’re burdens if I’m not willing to put them to use.

Except for that journal. I’ve barely written 5 pages in it.

[MedusaOblongata]

Practice on cheap leather. Dig through the scrap bin of a local leather store. Buy a piece or bundle of leather online. Tell yourself you'll use it to hold screwdrivers and hammers and you'll store it on the floor of the garage with the oil stains. Then you'll have permission to make mistakes, make it imperfect, ruin it and throw it out. Do that a few times and when you start making things so good you wish you'd used the good leather on them, then you know you're ready to use the good leather. You can also just buy more good leather, then when you go to cut it you'll know it's not the only piece you have.