I had made this pouch some time ago, as most of you who have been following the site have seen it in nearly all of my 14th Century photos, yet I had forgotten I did a step-by-step article on the production process!
So here it is, short, sweet, and to the point:
Step 1: The Pattern
The first step here is to create the pattern for the pouch. As we all know, leather isn't the cheapest material to work with, so making sure you have all of your dimensions and shapes down beforehand is usually best. I used some scrap drawing paper from my old and outdated notes for this, as it's very stiff and holds the shape for the pattern very well!
This particular pouch will consist of a front and back piece, center gusset, and a two-part strap which consists of a buckle end and a feeder end.
Step 2: Marking the Leather
Once the pattern is down, the next step is to mark it onto the leather. For this pouch, I used a semi-stiff vegetable-tanned 13 oz. cow hide for the main body and strap components of the pouch. The center gusset will be softer and made from some leftover calf skin I had from some shoes I had made prior to this project. I wasn't too concerned about using an ink pen to mark everything on this project in particular since it will all be dyed black later on, anyway, however, on lighter project you definitely want to use something that won't permanently mark your leather if it's going to be a lighter shade than the marking device you're using!
Step 3: Cutting
After all of the components are marked and measured, you can begin cutting. For this, especially since there are so many rounded edges, I used a curved Exacto knife. You can also use an actual leather cutting blade, or whatever preference you have.
Step 4: Edge Burnishing
This can be a bit tricky, especially if you're like me and don't have an actual edge burnisher yourself, which don't worry yourself about that too much - they didn't have them in the 14th Century, either!
To round off my edges slightly, I just use two glass cups, one with water, one without, and dab the water onto the edges and run the side of the empty cup on it. This will somewhat eliminate the rough edges on the leather and smooth it out a bit. Using the cup method isn't particularly pretty, but it does do the trick well enough, and once everything has been dyed, still looks pretty good.
Step 5: Tooling
You have a couple of different options here - you can either choose to leave the pouch plain, or tool the leather in a design of your own liking, or go like me and copy an original motif. The motif I went with was copied from an original work (the title of which has left me) in which the man is wearing a black pouch which has diagonal stripes along the flap with circles stamped in between them. This was a super easy design and took only a few minutes to complete!
Step 6:
Before you start sewing, it's time to dye the leather! Some folks opt to do this afterward, but I prefer to do it before, as sometimes the dyeing process can alter the shape and wear of the leather and make your original pattern wonky, so I feel dyeing it before lets it shape before I sew so I can adjust - similar to pre-washing your fabric before making a garment!
I went with a black dye, since black appears to be extremely prevalent in 14th Century artworks for leather goods. There has been some debate on whether these are intended to be actually black, but we'll talk about that in a later article!
Step 7: Sewing
Finally we can start sewing! The process I used for this was punching the holes one at a time with a sewing awl, and then lacing them through using the pony stitch technique with waxed linen thread and two needles.
The order I assembled the pieces are as follow: 1) Center gusset to front, inside out, 2) Front piece and center gusset to back panel, right side out, 3) Rear strap, 4) Front strap, 5) Buckle, 6) Stitching line across the top to hold the front and back pieces together.
The straps were sewn on using the same pony stitching method in a triangular manner.
And just like that, you're done! Total hours involved on this pouch, including dye drying, etc., was about five to six hours, so easily a project you can complete on a rainy day! Of course, this time depends on your skillset, decorations you add, etc., but these are a pretty simple project overall, especially when compared to other items from the period you could make (like sewing 50+ cloth buttons on a Cotte!)
The finished product is a basic representative piece of the average "kidney" belt pouch seen in a lot of Medieval artwork, not just in the 14th Century, and can be produced with even a basic understanding of leather work.
That said, if anyone wants one made, I do take commissions on these! ;)
