Leather Shoulder Bag

Segment 3 in the persona pentathlon series. The leather shoulder bag has been something on my list of things to try for quite some time. I'm really interested in learning more leather work skills and working on some luggage type things. I think that would be cool!

First the picture:

A Leather Shoulder Bag

Lady Eleanor Hamilton

Sandy Toscano

In Gardiner’s Company, we have used canvas haversacks to hold things such as cards, dice, waxed tablets, etc., that fill out our personas. A few women use them to hold things our modern purses would normally hold – wallet, cell phones, etc. Purses of the medieval time seemed to have held mostly money, maybe other small items, so their size appears to be proportionally smaller. We used canvas as a convenient and inexpensive way to make the bags. It is difficult to tell in contemporary pictures whether some bags were made of leather or canvas, but it appears that most purses and pouches were constructed of leather. Larger leather cases and bags seem to have been made for specific uses or specific objects.

I began a quest to find leather shoulder bags for my use. The book Purses in Pieces provides some images of men using larger bags, some around the waist, a couple over the shoulder (Goubitz 79). I went digging for the Breugel print of a person with a hairy bag (Goubitz 81) to get a better idea of the context of its use. Figure 1 is a larger area of that engraving, although not all of the engraving called Temperance. The image is of several students reading, so the bag probably was used to carry a book.

Figure 1. Students reading (Breugel)

Everyone needs something in which to carry their stuff. Bags and bundles were used to transport stuff. In doing research for the shoulder bag, I came to realize that mostly men used them. That isn’t to say women never had them, as the advantage in a shoulder bag is that the hands are left free. In images of pilgrims you see shoulder bags or pilgrim scrips in use (Figure 2) and in images of men working (Figure 3).

Figure 2. Male pilgrims with their shoulder bags (Book of Hours).

Figure 3 Album Amicorum of a German Soldier and detail.

The shoulder bags pictured in Goubitz (79, 80, 81) all have buckles on the shoulder strap to allow for adjustability. Because a shoulder bag has such utility I decided that the Hamilton household would have at least one made of leather.

I started by making a felt pattern to mock-up what size and shape I would like. Once I tweaked the size and strap length I cut out the bag and side pieces out of goat hide. While cutting out the goat hide I discovered that weight of hide, or possibly the fact that it is goat, is a bit stretchy. Stretchy is not a quality I would like for the shoulder straps, so they were cut out of a heavier cow hide.

The side pieces were stitched into the bag using waxed linen thread and two #3 glovers needles. I pre-punched the holes using a sewing machine fitted with a leather needle. This did not seem to work as well as it did for the leather knife sheaths. I had to further widen the holes with a diamond shaped awl. I used a double running stitch to sew the sides to the bag body.

I turned the stitched bag right-side out and determined where to place the buckle for the flap. Looking again at Goubitz, page 80, I fixed the buckle on the bag body and the strap on the flap so that the strap would naturally hang down.

The straps were then attached to the side body pieces. I intentionally left these too long so that I could “wear” the bag and determine where I wanted to place the adjustment buckle. I cut the straps to length at that time. The straps are still fairly long so that James and Eleanor Hamilton can both use the bag as needed.

This has been a very satisfying project. I learned more about leather working and worked on my stitching technique. The completed bag promises to be very useful. I am rather excited about acquiring more leather and making additional items such as coin purses and some spice bags.

References/Bibliography

Album Amicorum of a German Soldier, 1595. Watercolor. Los Angeles County Museum of

Art. 29 January 2012. <http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mwebcgi/

mweb.exe?request=record;id=130704;type=101>

“Book of Hours, MS M.1001 fol 80r”, Illumination. Corsair, The Online Resource of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 14 January 2012 < http://utu.morganlibrary.org/medren/ single_image2.cfm?imagename=m1001.080rb.jpg&page=ICA000121353>.

Breugel, Pieter. “Temperance” Etching. Columbia University Department of Art History and Archaeology. 21 Jan 2012. <http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/

arthum2/item.cgi?id=886&template=mediumPopDark&table=items>.

Goubitz, Olaf. Purses in Pieces. Waanders: SPA Uitgevers, 2009

Album Amicorum of a German Soldier, 1595. Watercolor. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 29 January 2012. <http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/mwebcgi/

mweb.exe?request=record;id=130704;type=101>