Leather Tote (Recycled From Lg. Men's Leather Coat)

Experiment with leather! Rescue a dusty old coat and make it something functional again.
This project is inspired by Canadian artist "Kim" who works in Victoria, B.C.. He sells his beautiful bags at top clothing stores around Victoria. I have always been inspired by his work, so I thought I'd try my hand at one of his bags. I had never sewn leather before, but I had heard that it was possible on a regular sewing machine. I bought the supplies and started experimenting on scrap pieces. Initially I was having problems with thread tension on my sewing machine, but I kept tweaking the settings (I was determined)! Finally I came around to an appropriate material, thread, needle and tension combination. I found regular 100% polyester thread to work best with industrial sewing needles. I chose an old leather coat with soft, medium thickness leather and sewed it with my thread tension at about "4" on my Singer sewing machine. Like I said though, you might want to experiment with your sewing machine beforehand... I have two machines (one from the early 80s, and my newer fancier one from the late 90s) and the one from the 80s (ol'betsy, as I like to call her) absolutely refused to sew leather! But my newer one, while stubborn at times, did the job very well for me. As always, sewing is a test of patience (which can ultimately be very therapeutic)! Good luck and I hope you enjoy this project. I'm really looking forward to seeing your results!