New Flowers in Red Black and Gray

I am working on a new color combo for a custom order. Some gray black and red. I love making these big flowers. They are lots of work but the end result is so worth it all!

Flowers In the Fall

I love the fall. The weather is starting to get cooler and the flowers are just so amazing right now! Of course these orange cosmos are my favorites! I also grew some strawflowers this year so that I could make some colorful wreaths for gifts. I have been picking the flower heads and collecting them in a basket so they will be ready at the perfect time. Back to work. I am finishing up on the new brown leather bag with flower accents.

Making Leather Flower

This is the bag that I am currently working on. I started with dark teal and yellow for the flowers but decided I didn't like the way it was looking so I am now using teal alone. I have layered and gathered petals on top of sueded leather to give it more dimension. I realize there is probably many ways of creating flowers with leather so I am experimenting right now. I am really having fun with this new design and love the size of the last bag that I created so much that I am going to continue making more in a variety of colors and changing the style each time. I never know what I am going to work on ahead of time really. It all depends on my mood. Right now I am in the mood for more flowers.

Resources From Nature

I wanted to share a little about how I came up with the pattern for this bag. You already know I love flowers and that seems to be my theme lately. I thought about using a real rose for a template and used one of the petals for an overall outline, of course realizing that I could not use too many petals due to the thickness of the leather so I settled with 2 layers and made the flower fairly large because I wanted to have that impact. After cutting the petals and rearranging the 2 flowers I had cut I realized then that I needed more. More flowers!! So here I am cutting more and I am going to cover the bag in them, making for more of an arrangement and making more of a statement. I love these leather flowers so much that I am going to continue exploring them and making many bags in different styles and possibly add some accessories like leather brooches and wristlets.
Here is another progress photo. I had to stop and take a break as my hand was starting to cramp after all the hand cutting. I plan on finishing up this bag this afternoon. Here you can see I took a rose from my garden and traced it making it slightly larger. What a concept....using things right in your backyard and from nature to use as resource!

Creating Leather Petals for New Bag

Here are some progress pictures of what I have done so far. I made a small video clip of the sewing of the details in the petals. If you feel like watching it click here. My mini camera does short clips but isn't the greatest for video so I am going to be shopping for a camera to be able to post my own videos and show the making of my bags, from the concept to the construction. Right now I am just playing around and getting a feel for the camera.
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I decided to go with an opalescent beige and creamy white leather first. So far I am cutting out the petals. I need to figure out how I am going to do the flower centers. Sewing through multiple layers of leather by hand like this can be a big job. Might need the help of my machine. Its tough on the fingers!