Leather Bag Straps

It's another year of Iron Craft challenges. I had fun participating last year and am glad to do it again. Iron craft is a series of challenges organized by Just Crafty Enough. Every two weeks a new challenge is announced. Each challenge has a theme and it is up to the crafter to interpret the challenge to make their project. Crafters have about two weeks to complete the project until reveal day. Finished projects are revealed on the group's Flickr page where you can see everyone else's.

This is Iron Craft's third year. As a celebration of its third anniversary the craft is all about the traditional gift of leather. A while back for my birthday, I gifted myself a snazzy leather crafting kit. I have been caught up with stuff that I haven't been able to actually use it! So finally an excuse to use it! 

After making bags for a while, one of the most annoying things to make has been straps. They are usually not durable and feel flimsy when made out of fabric. So I thought of giving some leather straps a try.

Last week most of the country was in the midst of a wintery blizzard storm. My own little corner of the world was no exception. I had an unexpected two days off and snowed in. It was the perfect opportunity to craft! This bag is the result.

I've combined a lot of my favorite techniques and the end result came out quite nice. I added a front pocket and a magnetic snap. There is also a recessed zipper and interior pocket. I went through some of my previous stencil designs and I came across a platform 9 3/4 sign, so I thought I would use it for the bag.  The bag was topped off with leather handles.

I was intimidated! I read stuff on leather and I wasn't sure if I had the right needle or if I needed a walking foot and I wasn't sure how I was going to do this with out pins. Luckily it went well. Here is what I did to make them.

Materials & Tools

• Faux Leather
• Leather Took Kit 
• Sewing machine and notions 
• clothes pins 
• Scissors 

Instructions 

• Wal-Mart is always a toss up when it comes to a selection of fabric. Luckily they had a lightweight faux leather. I liked it because it was easy to work with and manipulate. So keep that in mind when selecting material. I purchased a 1/4 of a yard
• Measure out and cut your pieces. I ended up measuring 3 inches by 24 inches and cut out two pieces.

• Take one of the strap pieces and fold it in half, then fold each piece in again to the half fold. 
• As I was folded I clipped them with clothes pins. (Because pins would ruin the leather, the clothes pins do a good job holding them in place) 

• Then I sewed each edge of the strap

• Since the edges were raw I folded them over and top stitched over them
• After both straps were done, I then attached the straps to the bag