After going to a job interview downtown, and wanting to bring my laptop over some downtime, I realized that my laptop bag had seen better days. The straps were ripping off the pleather…which happens with pleather.
I decided to make myself a new laptop bag out of a white calfhide side I purchased last year from Springfield Leather. I needed to add my signature style to it, of course. My first step was looking at Pinterest and coming up with some ideas for how I wanted it to look:
Those rounded corners were the death of me.
Next, was drafting up the pattern and cutting it all out.
I added a cutout on both sides. The one that has two cutouts, I put pockets in those areas.
Construction was not super fun. The leather and my sewing machine weren’t really getting along well. I also added Peltex stiff interfacing, and that made it even harder to sew on the machine. It doesn’t really bend. The worst was the corners, which I ended up having to hand stitch. Don’t look at them too closely, they suck.
I constructed both the exterior and interior and then handstitched them together at the zipper.
I did a lot of handstitching. The handles were all handstitched, plus the attachments to the bags. I handstitched the pocket linings to the zippers on the outside of the bag. My fingers are sore.
To make it sturdy and also cushion the laptop, I have the Peltex stiff interfacing on the sides and bottom of the bag, plus foam lining. I actually put two layers of foam on the bottom for extra cushion. I attached the foam to the inside of the leather with spray adhesive.
It was a huge pain and several days of work, but it turned out nice!
If I make another one I will have to think more about construction. I did switch to upholstery thread, since I was concerned with the seams popping. I think the curves were too severe for my machine to handle. If I had a sewing machine for leather, then I could have done it. There was just not enough maneuverability with a standard sewing machine. I can do boxed corners quite well in leather, so maybe that will be the plan if I do another one.
All in all I am happy with it. Like usual, it would have been much cheaper to buy a bag. I added up the cost and it was around $85 to make, plus close to 15 hours in it.
It is unique and one of a kind, though!
If you are interested in how I work with leather here are a few tutorials I have written up in the past:
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