This bag finds its origins in my desire to try out two things. One is leather working. Since I’m at least intending to branch of into shoe making, I can use some practice.

The other is the services of formulor.de, the Germany-based branch of ponoko.com. Formulor, as Ponoko, is a 3D printing and laser cutting service where you can upload your own designs and have them manufactured. They typically laser-cut wood, plastics and that kind of stuff, but they have leather too. 

This leather is thick (3.5mm) and stiff, and the maximum measurements are rather limited. So that puts a bunch of constraints on the design and I settled for a very simple and squarish look. I’m glad I didn’t make it more complex, because even like this, hand-sewing this puppy was no walk in the park.

There’s a few more pictures in this leather bag Flickr set