Woven Leather Hand-Stitched Bike Frame Bag

New bike bag, who dis?

I recently got my wonderful new bike for hauling myself to school and out and about. I have one pannier bag, but I wanted something smaller and more fashionable to have in case I did not want to lug around a full sized bag when I got to my destination. I got the idea to make a small bag to fit inside part of my bike frame.

When I was thinking about design, I wanted to build something that was sturdy, cost-effective, and minimally impactful on the environment (as much as I could). I did not want to go to a store to purchase materials that then would signal to the store to have more of these materials made and shipped. I felt like there were enough materials out in the thrift store / second-hand / getting-thrown-out world that I could make my bag from it.

I wanted to learn some new skills while making this bag while also using some technology that I have access to as well. I borrowed some leather tools from a friend and went deep into some Instructable and youtube rabbit holes. Shout out to makers Brooklyntonia and Ethan Carter Designs for their amazing tutorials which inspired a bunch of my project and taught me some cool skills.

Supplies

As I mentioned, this was a new skill and project to me. A lot of these supplies will vary, depending on what type of bag you are making. Reach out if you have questions and I will try to help.

Tools and Technology

Leather working tools (various size punches and pricking irons, wing divider, rubber mallet, needles)
Fabric working tools (sewing rotary blade, scissors, thread ripper, pins, fabric clamps, iron, self healing cutting mat)
Clamps, weights
Lighter for thread
Laser engraver/cutter, Inkscape or other design software
A bike
Cardboard and duct tape for prototyping

Bag Materials

Three colors of leather material (two discarded couches and a deep discount sale bin at a fabric store)
1970s faux leather suitcase (thrift store)
Leather belt (thrift store)
Veg tanned leather for laser engraving (Tandy Leather 50% discount bin)
1/8 inch plywood (scraps from my woodshop)
Discarded bicycle tubes (bike shops have tons they throw away)
Iron-on fabric backing
Neodymium ring magnets
Magnetic tape
Quick dry fabric glue
Thread for sewing leather

Step 1: Inspiration + Sketches + Measurements

Inspiration

I wanted to make this unique and personal. I live in greater Boston and I bike around Boston all the time, so I wanted to get some sort of image of Boston or the area laser engraved onto the vegetable tanned leather (DO NOT USE chromium tanned leather or PVC leather in a laser cutter. You will have a bad day). I found an old sounding map of Boston, took a photo with my phone and played around with it.

Using Brooklyntonia's leather weaving, I also tested out how to do weaving with strips of construction paper. Seems like I was able to follow instructions ok.

Sketches

I measured my bike's various tubes and the spaces between them to make some rough sketches of what the bag may look like. I thought of how the woven flap would fold over, where the bike inner tubes would go, where my laser-engraved map of Boston would sit, etc.

Measurements

I used some thin cardboard and duct tape to make a prototype of where the bag would sit in my frame and how that would feel while riding. This was really useful as I over-estimated my stand-over height. I am tall, but I could not put my feet on the ground with the first iteration of the prototype, so I cut, re-taped, and tested until I could comfortably stand over the bag with my feet on the ground. I used this cardboard bag to calculate the size of my woven fabric mat I would need. I estimated (over-estimated) that a 28 inch by 26 inch woven leather mat would cover my needs.

Step 2: Laser Engraving and Cutting

I have access to a laser cutter and I made decorative bike gear squares, 1.25" x 1.25". I found an image of a gear and tested it at various % of black/gray saturation (100%, 75%, 45% and 0%). A cool feature of the laser engraver is also that if you put a coat of paint (I used black acrylic, but spray works great too) the laser engraver will burn away the paint to reveal the wood with some level of engraving below. I ended up using the natural colored ones because they looked better on the dark bag. I think I will make the others into earrings.

In addition to the gear design, I put two holes for attaching the wood in each corner before I cut them out. A point of warning.. 2mm is too small for needles with leather thread. It was a challenge getting them attached. I will do larger holes next time.

I had never etched leather before and I did not have a lot of material to mess up with. I purchased a stitch-your-own wine bag from a deeeeeeeeep discount bin at a Tandy Leather near me. Big thanks to all the wine moms who didn't want to make leather wine bags, making $70 item ended up in the 50% or greater bin.

Similar to my different saturation with the bike gears, I made a series of decreasing saturation squares to see how it would come out. No real issues occurred, so I went ahead in making my image to burn.

I imported the picture of the harbor into the Inkscape. I traced the bitmap and separated it into layers, deleting the ones that did not add to the image. Eventually I got to a decent image that I used to engrave onto the giant leather pieces from the wine bag kit.

Step 3: Bag Body Construction

I am using the 1970s vintage leather bag for the basis of my bike frame bag. I started by disassembling the bag. I cut off the front zippered section, but I carefully kept most of the other stitches in place in case I wanted to use them in my bag. I also removed the metal frame the gave the body of the luggage its shape. The main pieces I used to assemble this bag were the front zippered section, the main body of the bag, and the metal support frame. Once I had these pieces, the steps were as follows:

Fit the metal luggage frame to the bike frame. Bend metal frame to correct angle of bike frame. Then trim metal to proper length.
Cut zippered and main body sections of luggage bag to fit bike frame.
Attach trimmed main body of luggage to metal support frame using needle and thread.
Cut leather belt in half. Sew onto the back of the main body near the top. This will attach the bag to the bike frame and be used as a shoulder strap when wearing the bag.
On the trimmed, zippered section (now referred to as "front") place the laser engraved leather in its proper location. Punch holes through both engraved leather and front for sewing.
Stack your neodymium ring magnets so their polarities are all oriented in the same direction. They will not stack otherwise.
Begin stitching your engraved leather to the front. Remove a neodymium magnet and thread it using the needle. Slide it down against the leather, making sure to keep the same orientation as on the stack. Pass through the ring magnet multiple times to securely attach it.
Continue on with your stitching, adding more neodymium magnets and keeping sure to maintain orientation of the magnets.
Stitch a second row of magnets to the other end of the engraved leather.
Attach the rest of the front to the main body with what ever stitch you like. I used a combination of saddle and others whose name I do not know.

Step 4: Weaving the Bag Cover

This process was probably the most fun and the most challenging of this project. I sourced leather/pleather from a few places: a green couch that was destined for the curb, a violet chair at thrift store, and some brown pleather from a sewing store discount bin. To cover all my area, I knew I needed a 26 inch by 28 inch mat. However, since two of my strips were at 30 degrees to the 26 inch dimension, I needed longer strips. I started off with a 26" x 28" green rectangle. Using a trig calculator, I determined that the longest the other pieces would need to be is 32" long. Here are my steps.

Cut 26 1"x28" strips of green leather. Cut 30 1"x32 of the violet leather and brown leather.
Lay the green strips face down on a cardboard mat. Use pins or sewing clamps to hold down the ends.
Color 2, violet, will create weft 1. You will weave the violet in the following pattern going from the bottom left of the green rectangle [OVER 1 UNDER 2 OVER 1 UNDER 2 ...] for each of the strips. I have labeled the green strips G1, G2, G3... and the violet strips V1 and V2. Use the image or the following algorithm to weave.
V1 over G1; V1 under G2, G3; V1 over G4; V1 under G5, G6....
V2 under G1; V2 over G2; V2 under G3, G4; V2 over G5; V2 under G6, G7...
V3 under G1, G2; V3 over G3; V3 under G4, G5; V3 over G6; V3 under G7, G8...
Use the pattern to continue for all violet strips above and below the ones completed. Some strips will be less than 32 inches and you can trim accordingly.
Color 3, brown, will create weft 2. These will start from the bottom left corner of the rectangle. Poke a hole in the end of the strips and insert a small zip tie. This will help you thread the brown through the other two layers.
B1 starts over G26/V1; B1 goes under V2; B1 pops out from under V3; B1 over V4/G23+G22
Repeat this pattern until the end is reached.
B2 pops out from under V2; B2 goes under V4; B2 pops out from V5; B2 goes under V7.
Repeat pattern for all of B2.
Complete rest of brown strips in same manner.
Once all brown strips are woven, pull the fabric tight and pin the ends.
Iron on fabric backing to seal weave.
Flip layers over and use tacky fabric glue to seal loose ends.

Step 5: Trim Weave to Proper Size

Lay the bag on back(white side) of the woven leather.
Trace edge with a marker.
Leave woven fabric in place and flip the leather bag upwards and then over on its other side. This will create a reflection of the bag on the weave so you have material to cover both sides of the bag.
Trace bag on fabric backing.
Use rotary cutter to cut out traced pattern.

Step 6: Add Bike Tube Edging to Weave

Trim bike tubing to long, rectangular strips to go along the edges of the weave.
Glue edges down with tacky glue and use clamps and weights to hold the tubes in place.
Fold tubes over and glue to the other side of the weave.
Use hole punches and mallet to punch through first tube layer, weave, fabric backing, and second tube layer.
Stitch together with needles and string.

Step 7: Attach Weave to Bag

Attach magnetic tape to the neodymium magnets on the front of the bag.
Snugly fit the woven fabric over the bag.
Remove the magnetic tape backing and press woven fabric onto it.
Punch holes in the backside of the woven fabric and the bag. Sew together.
Use the wooden bike gear medallions to mark spots for holes. Punch holes through magnetic tape, fabric backing, and woven fabric.
Align strips of bike tubes on the front of the bag over the holes.
Sew medallions over bike tubes through holes to hole the bike tubes and magnetic tape in place.
Apply glue under tubes and use weights to set the glue.

Step 8: Add to Bike or Self

And enjoy!

Step 9: Bonus Step! Use Extra Leather Strips for Earrings and Necklace

I have spent a lot of my time on this project in the past month learning lots of new skills and whatnot. However, this has led me to be distracted and not the best partner. I will be using the skills I learned in this project to make earrings as a gift for my wife, who I love so much and let's me get wrapped up in my projects. I will post pictures when I finish, but here is what I have so far.