Making a Possibles Bag Part 1

Adventures in Recycling - Making a Possibles Bag from Reclaimed Leather
Part 1: Selecting and Preparing Leather

When selecting a garment or other leather item to remake, pretty much anything goes depending on the size of the bag you want.  There are, however, two major considerations: 1) Quality of the leather and 2) Environmental conditions expected during use.

1) Quality of the Leather
     The primary consideration when making a bag from another leather item is quality.  The leather needs to be heavy enough and of good enough quality to hold up to deconstruction and reconstruction, as well as day-to-day use.  Leather that is too thin, or has weak sections will not hold up to any normal level of use, and may not hold up to the deconstruction process (I speak from experience here).

2) Environmental Conditions
     The secondary consideration is just as important.  If a bag will be used in a day-to-day setting, pretty much any leather item designed to handle occasional exposure to water, etc. should be fine (i.e. jacket, skirt, etc.).  If a bag will be used in rugged areas and expected to come into frequent contact with water, the item in question will need to be of a somewhat heavier leather and preferably treated with a waterproofing solution.



When selecting your item to remake, make sure to test out the item as much as possible.  Tugging firmly on the leather at any seams, as well as down the center of any sizable panels should help to see if any weak spots are present.  I learned the hard way to do this when I started deconstruction of a jacket only to have the leather rip at every single seam and in the center of the largest back panel.  There was literally no usable leather in the entire jacket.  When purchasing an item, I tend to visit the Salvation Army Thrift Store first.  I can get jackets for $5 each.  Normally, I'm not a brand person, but I have found that the better leather is found in the brands that carry the higher retail price tags.  Shop wisely!

The Leather Coat to Become a Bag

Back of Coat - Vertical panels provide lots of flexibility in design

Once you have chosen an item (for the sake of this tutorial, a leather coat), you will need to prepare it for working.

Preparation:
All linings, shoulder pads, etc. should be removed.  To do this, select a corner of the lining at the bottom of the coat and snip a hole large enough to get at least two fingers in.

Opening Started at Bottom

Weakness found during lining removal

If you can get to the seam cleanly, it would work even better to clip enough stitches along the seam to get two to three fingers into the opening created.  Do not cut out the lining!  The lining should be removed by pulling firmly and allowing it to tear or hopefully, the threads to break.  Pulling will allow weak spots that weren't immediately recognized to show up in that they will likely tear.

If a weak spot is found, pull gently on the leather and allow the tear to continue a short distance.  Hopefully the weak area will show up visibly as in the photo, and you can simply cut out the weak area, making sure to give a generous allowance around it to account for additional weakness that isn't visible.

Continue to pull the lining from the coat, making sure to turn out the sleeves and completely remove the lining there.  If possible though, keep the pockets intact as they can be used later.  When completed, you can discard the lining unless you have an idea on a use for it (and if you do, please share it!)

Lining completely removed

Turn out the sleeves and straighten the coat in order to study its make and determine the most efficient method of (de)construction.  In the case of this coat, the vertical panels give us a large expanse to make use of, as well as ready-made gussets for the sides. To allow for easy deconstruction as well as built in seam allowances, we want to separate the panels along the seams.

Panels marked

Separating the marked seams allows for the back and flap combined to be the entire length of the coat, which is a decent sized bag when finished.  The following picture shows the panels marked for most of the basic parts.

Other than these, we need a front panel and bottom gusset.  For my first, I cut across the panels on the right front of the coat, retaining the front pocket and buttons.  This allowed me to cut another section of a panel and sew to the inner portion behind the buttons and have a wider bottom gusset and thus give a little expansion room.  It also provides a built-in pocket on the front of the bag.

Part 2 of the tutorial will deal with the actual deconstruction and layout of the pieces.  I will try to provide it shortly, as soon as time permits.

Thanks for reading and God Bless!