DIY Durable Leather Wallet

Wallet is very important accessory and it is widely used by humans particularly men, but most of purchased wallets don’t last long.

Thus, this instructables will be a solution to the above problem as I am going to show you in details how to make a long lasting one.

The materials you need should be readily available in your locality, but if you prefer ordering form an online store, then they are available at Amazon.

• Leather (2 square feet, vegetable-tanned leather of 2oz thickness).
• Steel rule.
• Pencil.
• Rolling cutter.
• Scissors.
• Waxed thread.
• Ball point stitching needles (x 2).
• Push pins.
• Awl.
• Cardboard paper.

Before cutting out the leather, it is a good practice to first have a pattern usually made of a paper or cardboard.

For easy identification, I have labelled the patterns and pieces with letters. As you can see clearly in the images, P has a dimension 4” x 5”, R is 8.5” x 2.5” and S is 8.5” x 5”. If you notice well, the dimensions of P and Q are the same. Therefore, once you get one, you are good to go. So use your pencil and steel rule to mark out the given dimensions of the four pieces on a paper, then cut out the patterns using the scissors as detailed in the images. You can use your own custom dimensions if you wish.

After your pattern is ready, trace it on the sheet of leather.

Then using the rolling cutter and steel rule, carefully cut the pieces out of the leather.

After the pieces are ready, you need to punch stitching holes into the leather.

Use push pins to tack the paper pattern to the leather piece and use the awl to punch evenly spaced holes. Make sure the holes are big enough for the needles and thread to pass through easily.

To assemble the pieces together, the smaller pieces P and Q are layered on top of R, which all goes on top of S. Then fold the pieces for the holes to align.

Now, the leather is ready for stitching.

This is where the job is, so fasten your belt!

We be using the saddle stitching method to bind the pieces together. Therefore, we will use one thread and two needles such that one needle is at each end of the thread.

To bind the pieces together, align the holes together and weave the two needles through each aligned hole.

So, starting with the shorter hole path on piece Q (the right side of the wallet as in the images), cut a 25 inches thread, attach the needles to both ends of the thread. Pass one of the needles through the first hole at closer to the top of the wallet (through Q and R, excluding S) and pull through until you get an equal amount of thread on both sides of the leather. Then take one of the needles and start it through the next hole from the same side of the leather. Then start the other needle through the same hole from the opposite side. Hold both needles and pull through until the stitch is tight. Continue the stitching in a similar way. After a while, you will need to begin binding piece S (the upper layer) to piece Q and R. Once you have reached the end point, you will pass both needles to the back side and weave the threads, so that they both stick out of the back side of Q. So take the two needles from the back side of Q and add on piece R, then weave the needles between the aligned holes of the pieces. Then check if the stitching is good and tight all along the path, make tension adjustments if the stitching is not tight enough. After that, tie off the two threads by making three consecutive overhand knots as in the images above.

For now, you are done with one path. Similar procedure will also be used for other parts. Next is to stitch the shorter path in the second side of the wallet. So in a similar way, stitch piece P to R and later on to S. And tie off the thread at the end. So now, let’s move to the longer paths. Starting with the side we just completed, from the middle of the wallet, stitch P and R. As in the image, on getting to the first corner, you will be stitching S to P and R, that will be along the side of the wallet. On getting to the last corner, bring the threads through the middle, tie them off with three knots, cut the remaining thread, and then tuck the knot neatly into the corner fold.

So finally, your durable, beautiful and smart wallet is ready!

As you can see, you now have a wallet with a single pocket for bills and six pockets for cards. All you need now is to enjoy it. Have a wonderful day ahead!