I can tell you, without a doubt, every guy I know now notices my sewing skills – since I started sewing with pleather and leather.
Spice of Life bag by Moonshine
This little beauty had 2 features that I love.
1: It was made by Sharon, Gail, Luci and a few Rhodes ASG sewers in 1 session earlier this year. 1 session only!
2: I got to use real leather and snake skin printed silk fabric leftovers as well as leftover bag strap, in the same colour as the leather.
Making up the internal pockets was dead easy using Steam a Seam 2 lite. Yes. There are two pockets for the phone and car keys. The linings has been interfaced with light-weight interfacing.
I bought the tubular handbag frame from Ghees online store and the zippers was from my Zipperstop stash that I bought in 2011. I’ve found a local bag frame supplier through ebay – Handbag Hardware Australia, making future Spice of Life bags cheaper to make.
My shoe repair guy and I are now BFFs because while he doesn’t work on handbags, he sewed up the final seam around the handles for me for $10 and he now has the contact details for NSW Leather.
Lucky for me, he was quiet when I went to see him to finish the final seam on my bag. The photo below shows how he’s winding the bobbin. It ran out of thread.
He was really understanding and his sewing machine was hand driven! So he had to hold the bag with all its layers with one hand and operate the machine with the other hand.
This classic bag style is a winner in my books. When I make this again in leather I will use one leather layer only for the bag frame so my machine can sew through it.
I did a bit of online bidding for more leather via Graysonline but stuck to my budget and didn’t result in a leather purchase, phew! That’s it for bag making for a while and my UFOs in 2012 are done – bar the computer bag that won’t get a look at until next year.
velosews 
This bag looks fantastic – no wonder you are picking up all the guy comments with this over your shoulder! You are definitely onto a winner with this…J
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Impressive bag and no wonder the guys are commenting on all your new leather items.
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Great bag. Very stylish. Love the colours too.
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A beautiful and striking bag!
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Holy cow, that's impressive!!!
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Oh, man…this is so cool! The last thing I need is a new diversion but you may have created one! Awesome!
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great bag. Did you get the leather from NSW leather?
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Wow, it's very professional-looking! I bet you'll get years of use out of the bag. No wonder the guys are noticing!
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Your new bag looks amazing! Thanks for the inspiration, I need to get over my fear of sewing with leather so I can make such a great bag as well!
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Oh wow – an awesome creation for such an unfamiliar (to me) textile! Great shots with the guy and his sewing machine too 🙂 Very cool!
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very nice handbag, and I am impressed with how fast it was to sew. enjoy using it, I am sure you will!
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This is a great purse! Wow. I cannot believe you made it. I love the pics of the hand-pedaled leather sewing machine, too.
I learn so much on your blog. Like how I don't ever want to work w/ leather! And how to get men's attention (of course I find that out at 51!). And about Clover wonder clips–which I'm sure I need and am shopping for on ebay right now.
Enjoy your lovely purse & how fun to say, “Thanks, I made it!”
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What an eye catching conversation starter of a bag! I love the colour combination.
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Thank you all for your comments. I wish I knew how to reply to each individually on blogger. I'll learn that next year.
Vicki, this leather wasn't from NSW Leather however I do have a few leather hides from there now and I plan to use them in 2013.
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YOur new red handbag is the equivalent of a red ferrari to get all that male attention! It looks really spunky.
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Ohh beautiful bag…
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I missed this post. What a wonderful bag. Perfection!
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I want this bag! It is beautiful, made of leather and in my favorite colors. Great idea to ask the shoe repair man to do the sewing that can't be done on a home machine
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What an awesome bag! I LOVE that you collaborated with your shoe repair man to finish this project! Happy new year xxx
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Oh what a great looking bag!
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What a striking bag! I'm not really a bag person, but this one's pretty cool. How interesting to read how you collaborated on sewing the leather!
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Gorgeous purse! I hadn't even considered leather purses with my machine. I am a new sewer however.
What kind of sewing machine do you have?
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