Making a leather backpack

When Jessica read the Mandie books, she decided she had to have a leather backpack like Mandie’s. The first thing I did was go online to try to find a picture of what this wonderful backpack looked like. Ya, nothing. Soooo, I looked at the movie covers, again, nothing. I had to fast forward my way through one of the movies (Mandie and the Cherokee Treasure) until I could find the Mandie character wearing it and facing away from the camera, lol. After that, I just kinda ran with it.

The leather hide I had on hand was kinda thin but thick enough for a smaller pack. Jessica has scoliosis so I made the pack smaller on purpose so when she stuffs it full it still won’t pull too much on her back while on her adventures. I tried a regular needle and quilting thread at first, but realized pretty quick that was not going to work even with the thin leather. I switched to an upholstery needle and a thick waxed thread and that was much more solid and gave the bag stability when pulled tight. I also used this awesome tool my husband had that worked like a giant hole punch but it bunched 3 little holes just big enough for the big upholstery needle. That tool was a game changer! I know there are a bunch of good leather tools out in his shop *somewhere* but I didn’t want to even attempt looking for those!

While sewing it together, I did have to put some leather over the back of my left thumb as the needle kept nicking me when it would finally slipped through the leather on tighter stiches. It came out pretty good for my first time but I will definitely make some changes to the ‘non-pattern’ next time, lol! Thinking about making a purse