Leather iPad Cable Satchel

The Cable Satchel designed and made by the male half of this team.  This is the perfect size to hold an iPad in either section.  It's 9 &1/2" x 11"

Copper rivets for all the straps...they will patina really nicely along with the natural leather.

An extra piece of leather for the shoulder strap to reinforce the rivets since this bag could hold quite a bit of weight

Two sections each about 2" wide.  

Nice, simple strap attached to the bag with copper rivets. A buckle to adjust the closure depending on how full each section is...

Interior pockets for the smalls that tend to end up in the bottom of a larger bag. These will have to be redesigned since now that I'm using it I've discovered they are a bit too tight.  You can see that my pens are clipped and hanging outside the pocket.

Key clip, large cell phone pocket, and a couple of pen pockets.   I think one large piece of leather divided into sections by stitching would work better.  It would also accommodate different cell phones since those can vary in size quite a bit.

Overall, a nice sized bag especially if you carry an iPad with you all the time.  It holds a book really nicely as well if you're more "old school" ;)

Large Yellow Molded Purse

This bag is special....it's pretty much how it all started.  My husband surprised me last Christmas with a bag just like this only mine is Tan.  I was blown away needless to say.

Then we decided to make a few other things and opened an Etsy shop...just hoping eventually someone would buy something.  Now we have come full circle--

 almost exactly a year later making this bag...

I wrote a post about molding the leather that you can see here 
It explains it in a little more detail.  The molding process takes a couple of days.

This is a photo of all the parts ready to be dyed.  All the stitching holes are laid out on each of the parts and all the edges are beveled...the strap holes are punched...

The pieces all getting stitched together...there is an interior pocket in this bag 

so the interior pocket, the straps with the D rings, and the closure tab all get stitched first  before stitching the front and back of the bag together...

And when I say "stitched" I mean by hand with one piece of waxed thread and a needle attached to each end...

One needle going in each side and crossing over each other, "sandwiched" inside the leather.  It's a very strong stitch.  The wax keeps the thread from sliding around.  Basically it sticks to itself....

I also enjoy making our ideas in different colors..it's fun to see it come together in a different color.

The Yellow is very striking...

Mini Cross Body Bag in Scarlet

This little beauty is going on Etsy here soon...working out some measurements and details on the listing...

I have been working on a large, molded bag in Yellow and I wanted to get some photos of it on a person so my husband took a bunch of photos of three different bags while I was wearing them and I tried not to squirm while he was taking the photos.

This is the smallest bag I 've made.  And it actually came about because we cut the wrong pattern for a wallet so I decided to try making a bag out of it.

 It holds a phone, keys, sunglasses and a few cards..not much more than that, but it's great because it's so light to carry.  

The closure is my favorite part...all leather.  There is no metal at all on the bag itself.  The tab slides down through the bottom half of the oval.  And is actually very secure and tight.  

Kind of fun to think about styling the photos....

all those colors and combinations...

Blue Leather Ladies Wallet

Evening Blue....

Since I made this purse I have loved this color on our handstitched leather goods.  This blue wallet was a gift for my Mom.  Blue has always been her favorite color....

 I like it combined with the natural leather accents too...

 And the contrasting white stitching of the waxed thread...

it just fits a checkbook --although I'm not sure that most people even carry a checkbook now!

 We also recently made a cell phone case for an Etsy customer that had a Droid Razr so that's the wood mold you see in the front bottom section.  The iPhone 4 &5 also fit and my sister in law had her Galaxy in there and it fit fine too...

 My favorite part is that the closure is molded leather.  I've been experimenting with the shape/size of this.  I love the look of the oval but the first one I did was just a little bit too small so then I tried more of a circle shape on another red wallet for a customer and then I tried a larger oval on this one....

 The back has the three stitches that separate the two card slots...

 It would also hold a small notebook or cash...

 Still using my original macaroni prototype and I have everything in there that I "need" if I have to run in somewhere and don't want my whole purse.

We are always looking for new ideas to try out....

Skinny Ladies Leather Belt

A nice narrow, classic belt...it will always be in style.... 

 We were working on a cell wallet this week-end and I made the bracelet I have on in this photo too

A better photo of the closure on that...it's coming to Etsy too...

Our kids were spending time with Mamaw and Papaw so we had time to play and experiment with some new ideas.

 This is as skinny as I could get it ---

3/8" wide

 I wanted to be able to wear it low on my jeans and high with cardigans too...

 Just enough space to cut the hole for the buckle post....

and fit a single row of holes to stitch the buckle on...

Three Charm Anniversary Necklace

This is a nice twist on three charm necklaces I've done in the past.  Most of those have been mother's  necklaces with the names of three children on them....

I recently purchased the 1/16" number stamps which are nice....I was limited to larger charms before because I only had the 1/8" number stamps...

 The smallest sterling charm is 1/2" in diameter...so the 1/16" letters/numbers work well.

 I use sterling jump rings and sterling head pins for the little bead accents...

This photo shows the thickness or gauge of the metals I use too...these are all 20 gauge or or thicker.  

People ask about my jewelry sometimes and it can be hard to explain all the different choices.  I try to photograph everything I make so I can show them options but there are many variations...so even though this is similar to other necklaces I've done I'll probably list this on Etsy...

Waxed Canvas & Leather Backpack

The final waxed canvas backpack

He is so excited which is nice--

 sometimes he says he'd like us to make something and then he loses interest....

This will be the ultimate durability test of one of our goods.  If it can survive him and kindergarten it can survive anything!

I did a separate post about waxing it here

It seems to be setting up better now that it's been sitting a little longer....

The buckle and leather logo strap keeper are hand stitched.  The rest of it was sewn on my Sailrite machine....

The legs of the mechanic's suit we used had these little tabs with buttons to tighten the leg up around their boot....

I decided to use them instead of adding a drawstring or other closure at the top of the pack.  These make it smaller at the top so it all fits under the flap a little better.

Our first go at the copper rivets...LOVE these.  They just have a really cool look....

 They go through a hole in the leather and have a washer that gets hammered down flush with the leather....

The posts get cut off....

 And the silver setter has a second domed shape to hammer the raw/ cut edge down smoother to hold the washer in place.....

My machine does a great job sewing through some pretty heavy layers.  It's made to sew sails for boats and will go through up to 8 layers of heavy canvas or something crazy like that....

The straps are adjustable with some button studs so we can let it out a bit for the winter coats....

And because it's Doodle's we used our original wood flying "V" stamp on the patch holding the straps on....

I still can't believe he's going to school...part of me is so sad to see him go and part of me is so happy to see him start a new adventure.