Are you ready to get started making your leather tote bag? I know I am. (If you missed it earlier, here’s the link to the free pattern for the large tote bag so you can get caught up.) The first step is choosing the materials for the tote bag. This step is probably one of my favorite parts of the process, as I can spend hours online shopping and daydreaming about all of the gorgeous leather bags that I want to make. In today’s post, I’ll walk you through choosing all of the different materials that you will need, including the exterior material, lining, interfacing and hardware. My goal is to hopefully make it less intimidating to choose leather for your project, as I know I was a bit overwhelmed when I first started making bags with leather.
The choice of material for the exterior of your bag is probably the most important design choice you will make, so don’t skimp on the quality of the materials here. Depending on your attitude towards animal products, you can either make your bag out of genuine leather, or use a leather look-a-like material like faux leather, pineapple leather or cork. Read on to learn more about each option.
For me, there is nothing like the luxurious feel of a leather handbag, so I recommend making this tote bag out of leather, so long as you don’t have any ethical concerns with that. (And yes, you can sew leather using a regular sewing machine! More on that in the construction post coming up.) The downside, of course, is that good leather is pricey, although the price varies depending on the thickness of the fabric and the size of your leather piece. This tote bag is slouchy and relatively unstructured, so you will need a thinner leather, something in the 2.5-3 oz range. (Leather thickness is measured in ounces, with one ounce being equivalent to 1/64”. You can see a handy chart showing the different thicknesses for different use cases here.) You will need about 5 square feet of leather for this tote bag. (By the way, a good rule of thumb when thinking about leather square footage is that one yard of 54-inch wide fabric equals roughly 18 square feet of leather, taking into account the wastage that occurs due to the irregular shape of the leather hide.)
My favorite online source for leather is Rocky Mountain Leather Supply. I find that the leather they sell is always of the highest quality, and although they are not the cheapest source out there, I am willing to pay a premium because I know that I will always get a great piece of leather from Rocky Mountain. (And no, I’m not being paid to push them – I am recommending them based purely on my personal experience having made several projects using leather from them.) They are a small operation, so sometimes their shipping times are not as fast as others, but personally I think that’s a small price to pay in exchange for being sure of receiving a high-quality product.
For this slouchy tote bag, I think a good choice from Rocky Mountain would be this 2.5 oz calfskin leather that comes in 12 colors. This one has a mostly smooth grain, but if you want a more rustic look, try this exotic textured sharkskin leather that comes in 5 colors (though it is pricey!). I also think this bag would look very good in suede, so another option is this lovely (but expensive!) classic Italian suede that also comes in a wide variety of colors.
There are other, larger online retailers like Tandy Leather and Weaver Leather Supply that have a wider selection of leather to choose from, but I have found those shops don’t always have the high-quality, luxurious leather that I need for handbags. I personally would only buy from them if I already knew the exact leather that I was looking for and/or I was able to visit a physical store location to examine a sample.
If you’re uncomfortable using leather, either for ethical reasons or because genuine leather is simply too expensive, consider making the tote bag in a faux leather. Faux leather is made by applying a polyurethane (PU) or polyvinylchloride (PVC) finish to a base fabric of some kind. Many of you may have memories of the horrible faux leather (a.k.a. pleather) that was prevalent back in the 1980s, but don’t let that hold you back because the faux leather that is available nowadays is much, much better looking than the products that were available four decades ago. In fact, many high-quality faux leathers come quite close to mimicking the grain and look of genuine leather. Faux leather is also very budget-friendly, as even high-end faux leather typically runs only around $20-50 per yard.
I highly recommend the faux leathers from B&J Fabric, a high-end fabric store in the garment district in NYC. I have purchased their faux leathers on many occasions and always been impressed at how nice (and not plasticky!) the faux leather feels. The best option is to go their physical location in NYC, but if you can’t make it there, their website has a decent selection as well. I really like this so-called “Perfecto” faux leather that comes in 3 different colors (navy, red and white). It is 54” wide so you only need about a yard to make this tote bag.
If you don’t like the look or feel of PU or PVC faux leather, there are other alternatives that you can use to make the tote bag. One option is to use Pinatex, a faux leather made from pineapple leaves. Despite its origins, this product looks and feels surprisingly close to rough-grained leather and can be a great choice for bags with a more rustic, distressed look (click here to see examples of products made from Pinatex). Here are some pics from the sample book:
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