Lederhosen Bags

Today I will disclose why I am in a Bavarian mood this week :) It all started two years ago, when I found two vintage kid's Lederhosen on a flea market. They were so cute ! I remembered my little brother wearing one in the sixties, although we were living in Holland, and not in Germany at all, quite apart from Bavaria. I think it was the fashion in those days :) I don't know if my brother liked it; next time I see him I will ask him if he remembers it ....

Well, I bought them, but without any idea what to do with it. So, I put them in my traditional costume collection (although only existing out of adult women clothing). But a few weeks later I suddenly thought that I could maybe use the leather for making leather bags, which I was longing to do already for quite some time. But then I would love to keep the cute pockets, and the stitched flap, and the beautiful special Lederhosen buttons....

So, I started to fiddle around and tried to sew it on my sewing machine. But my, otherwise splendid, sewing machine did not like it.... and simply refused to do it. OK, the leather is quite thick, I confess. Buying a special leather foot and leather sewing machine needles did not solve the problem. It wouldn't do the trick. Then I tried hand sewing, making holes and with special thick leather thread bought from a shoe maker on Ebay, I struggled on. My fingers became red, sore and with many pinholes after 60 cm of sewing, so I gave up. Till my hubby gave me some day an old sewing monster ! He had discovered an old man in a neighboring town who collected old sewing machines from the former GDR sewing industry and repaired them. And there he bought me this leather sewing monster.

I was pretty afraid for this monster to begin with; it made quite some noise and went at an enormous speed, with a giant needle through 3 cm thick layers.... And I was fearing for my fingers a bit :) So, it took quite a long time of practicing, and lots of fiddling around with machine parts by my hubby, to get it in a state that I could do my "thing". Three months ago, I finished my first Lederhosen bag, and started to wear it myself to see if everything was ok. Changed some bits and experienced this first bag as pretty practical, sturdy and stylish; got lovely comments on the streets too. 

So, I started to search for vintage Lederhosen on flea markets everywhere, on line and off line. I even found red and green ones ! And Lederhosen specially made for girls with little hearts on it. So, I was hooked. And this week I could finally start listing 5 Lederhosen bags in my P8 Accessories Etsy shop !!!! I invite you to go there and have a look how wonderfully variable and cool these bags have turned out.

So, this is the story of my Bavarian mood, and I am afraid it will hold on for some really long time too .....