This year I made her a nice purse combining my bark-tanned hide and some brain-tanned buckskin, as well as white-tail hock skins. It turned out pretty well so I thought I'll share with you how I made it.
What you'll need:
- Two pieces of a brain-tanned hide for the front and inside pocket: 9 x 13 inches each.
- One piece of a brain-tanned hide for the combined back and flap: 20 x 13 inches.
- One piece of a bark-tanned hide for the sides and bottom: 32 x 3 inches (tapering slightly to 2.5 inches at the top of the sides).
- Two welts from a bark-tanned hide: 32 x 1/2 inches each.
- Two pieces of a brain-tanned hide and two pieces from a bark-tanned hide for the flat braid strap: 72 x 1/2 inches each.
- Lengths of buckskin thongs for sewing: 1/4 inch wide from uniform thickness, then wetted and stretched.
- Two untanned hock skins.
First put the first two pieces (front + inside pocket) together, both "flesh sides" facing each other, and with the thicker sides of the hides facing toward the bottom. We'll sew these pieces to the bark-tanned bottom. It's best to do this by working inside out so line up the "hair side" of the front piece with the grain side of the bark tan, with one welt coming in-between them. With a punch awl punch holes all the way along the bottom, about 1/4 inch from the edge and 1/2 inch apart.
In the picture above you can see the purse turned inside out with the bark-tanned piece at the bottom, the welt above that, and then one piece of buckskin on top (it's not a picture of the inside pocket so that's why there's not another layer of buckskin there). Pass the buckskin thong through the holes with a basic running stitch, tightening each stitch enough to have the wavy look as above.
When you flip everything right-side out, it looks like the picture above: the bark-tanned hide at the bottom, the welt, and the buckskin piece on top. Again, note the waviness of the welt due to pulling the stitches tight.
Still working inside out, sew up each side from bottom to top.
At this point, you should have the front piece and the inside pocket piece sewed up to the bark-tanned bottom. Repeat the process with the other side of the purse, still working inside out.
Here are several angles of the finished product:
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| Bottom |
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| Side |
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| Front with flap open |
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| Inside. Note the pocket formed by the two closer buckskin pieces. |
To decorate the flap I added two hock skins from a young white-tail deer. I cut them to shape with scissors (don't use your best scissors or it will dull them fast), placed them where I wanted them, then punched holes all the way around through them and the buckskin flap. I used a buckskin thong to sew them on with a simple running stitch.
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| Flap |
If you mess with the hair a bit you can even almost make the stitching disappear. I didn't do that here except at the very bottom.
Finally, a strap needed to be made. I opted to make a flat braid strap with two lengths of bark-tanned pieces and two lengths of brain-tanned pieces. I'll make another post soon about how to make a braid like that in detail. But the basic thing about it is to have the four strands side by side; then, starting from the right, make the strand go over two of the other strands and then under the last one. Then repeat always starting from the right and without twisting the strands (the same side always remains on top). It really helps if all the pieces are of the same thickness.
I made the strap extra long so that there would be more than enough to attach everything together and make final adjustments after the purse had been worn a few times. From my 72 inches long pieces, I ended up with a 56 inch long braided strap.
When the strap was made, I measured the length I wanted it to be and undid the extra at each end, and made two two-ply reverse wrap cords with the freed strands at each end (see how to make reverse wrap cordage).
Then I punched two sets of two holes about 1/2 inch apart, at the very top of the bag, close to where the back of the purse meets each side, and I passed each cord through a hole, making a square knot on the inside, as shown in the picture on the left.
On the outside of the purse, it looks like in the picture below.
If I may say so myself, I ended up with a pretty stylish purse and the only thing I sourced from someplace else were brains for brain tanning. Otherwise, it was all collected outside my door and 100% hand-made.
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