I was pleased with the design and construction of Handbag #1, and decided to perfect the pattern while doing something a bit more zesty. This is my second handbag, “Lisa”.

Sewing this design entirely by hand is quite tricky, especially when closing the last black side to the pink body. One really has to dig in with the needle from the inside of the bag and hope for the best, as the stitches start in the depths of the bag and are sewn through uppers and lining towards the top. I used contrasting thread colors: black thread for the pink parts, white/silver thread for the black parts on the front, and black thread for the black parts on the back.

The uppers are made out of 2-3 oz black and pink crocodile printed Italian calf skin. I lay up the patterns on the skin as to get the ‘spine’ in the center of the piece. The personalized logo is made out of 4 oz vegetable tanned calf, and the lining is made out of 2 oz full grain yellow calf.

Just like on Handbag #1, the bag is reinforced (between uppers and lining) with stiffeners made out of 5 oz vegetable tanned calf, giving great stability and durability to the bag.

The magnet lock, D-rings and chain are metal. The thread is nylon, and the adhesive used is contact cement. Everything else is leather.

I used the same basic patterns and ‘blueprint’ as for Handbag #1, with minor modifications. (Mostly, I modified how I then handled the pieces and folded the edges over.) From the patterns below, I cut wider angles on the corners to make the edges connect more nicely.