I have read one or two bag-making books that I bought from Amazon before taking P&M’s Beginners Bag Making course. Those books are more about sewing techniques than constructing a bag – in most cases you just cut two pieces of fabric according to a pattern as the body of the bag, then cut the lining and make two fabric handles, and sew together. But that kind of bag can’t satisfy me. I want my bag to look handcrafted but more like a store product than something made at home. I am also particularly interested in learning how to make leather bags, and tutor Lesley has proved to me that this course is the right start!
There were five of us in the class. First we chose materials. Tracey has brought a piece of dark pink tweed fabric that she bought a long time ago from Liberty, but had no idea what to use it for. Elizabeth and Tim have brought their own leather, while Wendy and I chose vegetable-tanned calf hide from the studio. My leather is very pretty calf skin in fawn, and my lining is white canvas.
the cut pieces of bag body and lining
The difference between the beginners’ course and the advanced one is that we have to use patterns prepared by the tutor in the beginners’ course, and with less complicated designs, mainly due to the time limitaions. But even a simple one like this still has a lot of processes involved – you will be stitching the leather facing and lining together, positioning and attaching the pocket and adding your own personal touches if you have time!
The advanced course is often held in conjunction with P&M’s bag pattern making course (One-Day Shape Making for Bags), so that you can create your own design.
sew facing, linine and pocket together
The pattern I chose has an oval flat base. After the lining is sewn, it looks like this:
the lining looks like a bag already!
I worked quite fast so I had a bit of time to add some personal touches to my bag – hand-sewing a label with my name on it!
my little leather label
Leather is very different from fabric. To tidy up the edge of the bag we did a lot of gluing and cutting. This is a view of my glued leather facing…
neatening the edge
Following nearly the same procedure, I constructed the body of my bag - all leather with a flap!
structuring the body of the bag
Then we need to decide the shape and style of handles – that’s my favourite part! My handle is a single strap on which I used a lot of techniques that I learnt on the belt-making course.
leather handle belt
I put the lining bag into the body bag and sewed them together, then riveted my belt handle on. My bag is complete! Althought the pattern I chose seemed to be very simple, the whole bag looks amazing when finished! I am so proud of my bag 
The slim leather strap is actually the leftover calf hide from my handle.
my finished leather bag!
The cost covering the existence of the item will be cheaper than a low-cost item that destroys after a couple of uses. Something more important to consider when purchasing a leather backpack is how sturdy the seams are usually.