Leather Bag Attachment Strap - Traveler's New Best Friend

I have seen this luggage strap called "Bag bungee" in a luggage store lately and I thought this would look much better in leather and and self made.
It holds a bag or cabin suitcase securely to your bigger suitcase. You simply attach it to the big suitcase, strap it around the smaller one and the fix it behind the handle. It is lightweight and will work with most luggage.

Step 1: What You'll Need

- piece of leather
- fabric elastic about 120 cm long
- belt strap about 2cm broad and 35cm long
- a release buckle
- cord lock
- leather glue (I think fabric glue will work too)
- drinking straws
- some fine thread
- tough sewing machine
- washable wax crayons


I made mine with leather normally used for furniture. It is rather thick but soft to touch and has a rough wrong side. When you glue two pieces together (wrong to wrong) it gets quite rigid.
If you work with a tougher leather you can just make the sides longer and fold them over to get the loop for the elastic.

Step 2: Cutting the Leather

... and now to my wax crayons

I hated them in primary school. The colors I wanted were always missing in the box, the tips got too broad too fast and in the end the whole paper was smeared with the color from your fingers.

But anyway ;-) They are great to draw a pattern on the leather. Like your fingers the leather takes on the colors from the crayons well AND it can be washed off easily with water and maybe a bit of soap.

Okay then. Draw the pattern on your piece of leather. You'll need every piece twice. Make them all a bit wider than the handle of your trolley.
For the piece going behind the handle: Cut about 4 cm out of the middle of one piece to get two flaps, alternatively you can just make two holes to put the elastic through.

Step 3: Glueing the Pieces Together

Now you can glue the pieces together. To make sure the elastic will fit I used drinking straws as placeholder.
I forgot to take a picture of the handle piece, but the straws need to be parallel to the long side in the middle of the piece.
In the center piece the straws are just next to the short side as in pictures 1 and 2.
In the bottom piece the elastic needs to make curve and the straws need to be bent as in picture 4 into the right angle. Pull a fine thread through the straws before glueing the pieces together to pull the elastic through afterwards.

Apply glue all around the straws and press the pieces together. While the drying process move the straws from time to time so they can still be removed afterwards.

Step 4: Insert the Elastic

When all is dry push the elastic through the straws and remove the straws.

Pull the ends of the elastic through the cord stopper and make a knot.

Step 5: Sewing - Tough Work

For the sewing you will need quite a tough sewing machine.
First sew all along the edges and along the elastic. With a blind hem foot that's done quite easy.
In the end sew on the belt strap with one part of the buckle on the bottom piece (the hardest part by far) and pull the strap through the other piece of the buckle.

And then your done!

(I have a new sewing machine and we need to get to know each other a bit better first, so please ignore some of the not so pretty seams.)

Step 6: Strap It on and Off You Go.

You strap it on to the top handle of your big suitcase, put your smaller bag on top of it, pull the strap around the bag, secure it behind the handle of the suitcase and pull the elastic tight. And voilà, no more tangled handles on the hallways and one more arm free (e.g. to fight your way through the tourist masses :-) )

If you like it please vote for me in the leather challenge, thanks guys.