Bag Fish Tutorial ~ DIY Tutorial Ideas!

How to sew a volume leather bag-fish

Bag of genuine leather, two colors: blue and yellow (sea and sun).
We think about how we will sew the bag and how to turn it over and create a pattern:

All patterns are drawn and scanned on A4.Cut out all the details:

Since my yellow skin is a bit thin for a bag, I seal it with a woven interlining fabric. I do it with an iron. We iron the skin only from the inside, on the “cotton” mode and always without steam!

The head of the fish (blue skin) is made of thick skin, so we do not seal it. We put the upper part of the fins on a piece of skin and drain them along the perimeter. The end of the blue skin is white, so we mix the paint of the desired color and paint over the butt.
After the paint has dried, process the edge with SMS powder. I spread it in water, mix it for a long time, so that all the lumps dissolve and cover with a thin layer butt and rub it with a slicker (wooden “stick” for polishing the edge). SMS powder gives a transparent smooth surface that looks beautiful and protects the end of the skin from getting wet. This is quite painstaking and routine work, but it makes our product more beautiful and professionally made.

The upper part of the fish’s head consists of two halves - it allows us to make the head volume.We join the details together, we sew, we put up the seams, we tap out and make beautiful stitching.
About glue - I almost don't use it, and I glue and fix all seams with double-sided tape. It is convenient and reliable if you need to glue and immediately sew.

Now we sew our yellow parts of the fish (except the abdomen). Do not forget to insert into the finished fins - the top two.

We do not sew the whole part of the blanks, they do not coincide with us (it can be seen from the photo). It is convenient to mark in advance on the skin the lines of the beginning and end of the stitching.
We sew from the beginning of the tail to the head. Since the product is very “bending” and the fin (yellow) is narrow, then for better turning and a smooth seam, after flashing, we pass the zag zag scissors along the edge. Just do not do it too close to the edge!

And again sticking seams.

Since we already have the volume, it is convenient to use the anvil for smoothing seams. I have it with a sharp nose. It is convenient to put on the workpiece and tap off on the nose. After, we make a beautiful finishing seam along the "ridge" of the fish.

Back to the fish head again. We have two parts of three, and now we need to sew a zipper.

The zipper can also be taken from metal, but in this case I used detachable (of course, otherwise it would be difficult to sew completely) and a metal slider. As I then saw in the end, the zipper still needed to be taken under the color of the head (blue) or yellow, red is still “knocked out”, but this thought came at the end of the road.

The tail of the zipper is left more authentic, so that it is convenient to wear a slider.

We check how the zipper works.

My liner is a very dense Oxford, so you do not need to compact it. We cut, iron, find the middle on the lining and on the leather part and stitch it - we get slippers :)

On the rounded places we make notches with a knife or tweezers, so that again, the product is easier to turn out. In this case, it is better to make cuts, rather than using zigzag scissors.

We turn it over, we tap out the skin with the mallet (do not damage the lightning carefully) and make beautiful stitch around the perimeter.

Here's what we got:

We do this with the second part of the “shoe”.

Now we need to remember to make fish eyes (I almost forgot). My eyes - metal holniteny, you can sew interesting buttons, buttons.

We connect the center of the inner part of the head and the outer center of the yellow back - stitch and turn it over.

We do the stitching. Make sure that the lining does not fall under the needle.

The lining is not sewn (yes, it will require some resourcefulness or a core machine (I don’t have it, I only sew on a straight-line).

We do the same with the second part.

Here's what happened:

Now connect the two parts of the fish facing each other.

And sew. Lining again nowhere stitched - watch!

Once sewn, put on the slider and the ends of the zippers (on both sides) stitch, so that the slider has nowhere to go.

Turn out bag.

This is the most difficult, long and painstaking stage of work. It is necessary to turn as carefully as possible, but at the same time aggressively! You may need additional tools (I often use a thick, large brush with a blunt rounded end).

But that's not all - we make straps for handbags.The bag is small, light, so the straps are made thin and simple.We will have two of them - for carrying a bag in your hand and on your shoulder / over your shoulder.

The length of the short strap is 45 cm (I can take less), a long one - 135 cm. The width of the strap is 3 cm, which we fold in half, so that in the end the belt is 1.5 cm wide.

We make hlyastiki for half-rings, which are fastened holnitenami to her purse.