Leather Handbag Class

Yesterday I did a great Leather Handbag making class at Sew Over It, a fabulous sewing cafe and shop near Clapham North tube station. The class was great and was all helped along by endless pots of tea and several slices of cake (all included in the class fee and very much appreciated). I had to use all my willpower to resist the temptation of the lovely sewing bits in the shop and came away with only the bag I made and some bondaweb I needed for a project but I am sure I wil be back there soon.

We had a wonderful teacher for the class, Danielle Budd who showed us some great tips and techniques for working with leather. It is really not so different from making a fabric bag although there is a lot more gluing involved. I had a beautiful soft blue suede to work with and teamed it with some lovely blue paisley delilah fabric for the lining. I am really pleased with the result and hope to make some more leather bags soon.

I would really recommend the class, it was a great way to spend a weekend and I will definitely be trying some more classes at Sew Over It soon. You can also bring your own projects to work on in the sewing cafe and they have a domestic quilting machine (as it says on the web-site) which turns out to be a Janome memory craft! I will certainly be taking some of my half finished projects along to finish off on their super swanky machines without the help of my cats!

The finished bag

Close up of trigger ring, eyelets and rivets.

Lining and pocket