Choose an iron and a thread, then draw across the leather, or press 1, 2 or 3 for a ready line and Enter to stitch it.
Front panel · Cut 1 · Grain ↕
Bags, wallets and luggage in vegetable-tanned cattle hide, cut and saddle-stitched by hand in our Lobethal workshop, one piece at a time.
Back panel · Cut 1 · Grain ↕
We work in vegetable-tanned cattle hide. It is tanned slowly with bark tannins, so it stays firm, takes a groove and a burnished edge, and darkens with light.
The firm leather along the backbone goes to what carries weight: panels, straps and gussets. The softer belly goes to pockets and wallet insides. Every piece is laid out with its grain arrow running the way it will be carried, then cut with a round knife in one pass.
Linings are the same leather, plain cotton canvas, or none at all. Cattle hide only: no pigskin, no suede splits and no exotic skins.
Flap · Cut 3
Three pieces we make most often. Each is drawn to the millimetre, then drawn again round the person who will carry it.
Satchel · Front elevation
A satchel with a flap and a short handle, measured round the laptop and notebook you carry every day. The strap passes through a leather keeper, so there is no buckle to catch on a sleeve.
About — stitches at 3.85 mm.
Wallet · Open, inside
Notes flat, cards in two rows. We usually stitch it at the fine iron, 3.38 mm, because the wallet is the piece you look at closest.
About — stitches at 3.85 mm.
Priced once we’ve measured. Every piece is made for one person, so we quote it for one person.
Holdall · Front elevation
A holdall with a deep gusset that stands up on its own when it is empty. We stitch it at 4 mm for the weight, and double-stitch the base where it meets the floor of a car boot.
About — stitches at 3.85 mm.
Pocket · Cut 1
Tell us what goes in it and we draw the pattern round it. When you come to the workshop, bring the things themselves and we measure again.
Gusset · Cut 1
One bag on the bench at a time. It starts as six pieces nested on the hide and ends as one seam you can follow all the way round. Every piece carries lettered notches; where two letters meet, they are sewn together.
From the first cut to the last burnish, one person’s bag on the bench.
Strap · Cut 1 · Grain ↔
A saddle stitch uses one length of waxed linen with a needle at each end. Both needles go through every hole, from opposite sides, and cross inside the leather.
Pull them tight and the thread locks against itself in the hole. A machine’s lock stitch is two threads looped together; break one and the seam can run. Break a saddle stitch and the stitches either side still hold, and we can pick it up and sew it again.
You chose the 3.85 mm iron: about 6.6 stitches to the inch. Finer reads neater on a wallet; a little wider sits well on a bag that works for its keep.
Keeper · Cut 2
A cut edge of veg-tan is open fibre, like the end of a rope. Left raw it frays and soaks up water. So every edge we cut is finished by hand before the piece is closed.
Run a thumb along it. You shouldn’t feel where the layers meet.
Handle · Cut 1
Vegetable-tanned leather keeps changing after it leaves the bench. Sun deepens it from pale tan toward honey, hands leave a soft shine where they hold it, the gusset creases where it folds, the corners polish where they rub.
New, off the bench.
Rub the bag with a finger or the pointer. With the keyboard, the arrow keys move the ring and Space rubs.
A soft dry cloth. No heat to dry it. A little conditioner once a year if it looks thirsty.
Pattern card · Keep with the hide
Tell us what you’d like made and what goes in it. We’ll write back to find a time for you to come up to Lobethal with the things you carry, and measure.