Making a Dress Sporran - Questions

[MacMullen]

I like to make my own things, even if I could buy them commercially for less than it would cost to make it. It's fun and I can say, "I made that!" The things I make are not always the prettiest, but, I have learned over the years to build or make a prototype first, solves a lot of problems and saves a lot of headaches later on. I made my last sporran out of vinyl first, and ended up doing four of them, before I actually moved on to make one out of leather.

With that philosophy in mind, I'll be making a "practice" sporran out of faux fur, see if I like it, see how it worked out, and then move on to make one out of real fur.

Fun, educational, and interesting. Even if you don't think you can do it, you'll never know for sure until you try it. And, even if you fail, to paraphrase Edison, "Now I knew a thousand things that woun't work." And again, "Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

[mbhandy]

Hi Joel,

Do you have a picture of the leather one you made? Lets have a gander!
I like the Skunk project, has a good mmmm smell to it.

MrBill

[A Dhuglas]

Slowly heading down the same trail Joel. Still in information gathering mode even for my first leather sporran. Just my nature to research things to death first.

FYI, if you'd rather go with real fur check out eBay. Tanned rabbit pelts aren't expensive and I think most of the generic 'fur dress sporrans' we see in catalogs, on eBay etc. are rabbit. Skunk and muskrat pelts aren't bad either.

Variety in cantles appears to be the tough part. I haven't checked yet with anyone like Craigie to see if they're willing to accept one-off orders for the different Morrison cantles they use in their sporrans. Stillwater offers two cantles: nickel-plated brass for $25 and black for $30. $5 shipping/handling. The black is unique.

One thing I haven't researched yet: best way for attaching the fur pelt to leather backing. Not certain whether tacking with stitches, cementing or combo of the two is the way to go.

Assuming I'm pleased with my results once I fabricate a couple of leather and fur sporrans, I hope to use what I learn for two dress sporrans using arctic fox on one and badger on the other.

DD