Wallet Project
Leathercraft
For a long time I have wanted a rustic, super durable, hand stitched leather wallet made from veg tan leather that will age and develop character over time. Sadly, the price of this kind of item has always put me off. It wasn't until recently, when I saw another designers hand made leather items, that I realised that I could make one myself! The basic premise of it seemed pretty simple: cut some leather shapes and stitch them together. I bought the supplies I needed and got to work.
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Starting with the natural light coloured veg tan leather, the aim is to end up with an aged wallet that looks like this in a few years time.
The first step was to draw out some template shapes on illustrator and print them on to card. Once these were cut they could be used as templates for cutting the leather. All the shapes were then bevelled and burnished on the edges and treated with oil.
Now the pieces were all ready, it was time to stitch it together. Using some special leather tools, I scored a line 2mm from the edge that needed stitches and then used a rolling pin wheel to mark out evenly spaced dots where the stitches would be. The holes were made with an awl prior to stitching. To keep both hands free I had to custom make a rig that would hold the leather whilst I stitched.
When all the stitching was finished I suddenly realised that I may have misjudged the thickness of the leather to use considering it was layered. This meant I ended up with an extremely thick wallet....
The final Wallet.
UPDATE
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The thickness of the wallet was starting to really annoy me so I made the decision to sacrifice the coin pouch... Now I just need something to cover the holes...
