Market Basket Bag 2.0 – Part I

The beginning of an amazing project. Let’s dive into the first part of the market basket bag 2.0. It has quite some difficulties, quite some techniques but before we can start assembling the bag there is this scary part of bag making process…

Cutting the pieces

I still don’t know why, but I am always afraid of this part of the process… cutting into the leather. To start at the very beginning of this process I have to start with the paper design. You might remember it from the inspiration post, if not, it’s here. Once I am satisfied with the design I transfer it to a thicker cardboard which will make it more easy to trace it on to the leather, to store it and to use over and over again.

Round bottom

There are different techniques to cut round shapes into the leather. First I trace it carefully on to the leather from the cardboard, next I cut the leather with a little bit more margin so I don’t have to work so precise when round shapes are involved and I drag a whole hide along with it. With this roughly cut piece I prefer the method to cut straight edges with a ruler and slide the ruler along the rounded edge. This results in small triangles, smaller and smaller as you proceed. It might look a little bit boxy but you can cut even smaller triangles to eventually get a rounded shape.

Straps, straps and more straps

As the first images show, I’ve cut a lot of straps. Since I work with the woven leather I have to bind the edges with a piece of leather on the top as well as on the bottom and the sides of the market basket bag 2.0. Besides that, I also make 2 bags at a time so I needed the double amount. 

Next steps

You might be curious what the next steps will be… Well, first of all, I’ve also cut straps for some piping. I’ve practiced a first time in this post, and I would like to use this technique for this bag. It takes quite some preparation and labor but eventually I hope it will truly be beautiful on the bag.

Next, the edges of the woven leather will be bound, a little inside pocket needs to be made and by then it will definitely be time for a new making-of post ;). So stay tuned for these next steps and the ones thereafter to create the market basket bag 2.0.