When my family was cleaning out my grandma’s house after she passed, they found a small bin full of deerhides. Some were in decent condition, some were pretty stained up, but there were enough to be used. As I am the only one that really sews or uses leather, they ended up at my house. The thoughts were that they were from when grandpa was hunting. I wasn’t sure, as I could not see any dry rot and my grandpa passed when he was in his early 50’s. That was many moons ago.
As I was sewing up one of these purses, I found a tag on it from one of my grandpa’s brothers who passed in 1961. My grandpa’s bachelor brothers, along with his family, lived together on a farm. Happily it seems that these are likely from all three of them, though, I’ve only found one tag from a tanner.
These were Christmas gifts to my mom, my sister and my aunt.
Purse 1: This is a smaller version, using the pattern from the pink purse I made this past fall.
I used a denim print with my moth pattern for the inside. The strap is deerhide and a ribbon I purchased on Amazon. I used that ribbon for all of the purses as it matched the deerhide really well.
Purse 2: This next one is an unstructured (i.e. not much interfacing) slouchy purse. It has a zip along the inside with a leather facing. The inside fabric is another of my designs in a denim with a couple of pockets.
I added the bottom printed leather to help protect this against stains. This is a bigger bag than the other one and a new design. The strap ended up having the ribbon added to it.
Purse #3: Another bigger bag. This one I use plain brown leather for the “v” and the bottom of the bag. I didn’t intend to do that additional little strap across, but I got a stain on leather from the oil in the machine, so I made do and added an accent feature.
It has a magnetic snap closure on the leather inside facing.
I have been meaning to get these completed for the last few years and finally got them done. Procraftinators unite! Tomorrow! 😉
