Hi Gents. Working on my first sporran project. A neighbor was throwing out a large, cat-shredded, leather sofa. I went at it with an exact-o knife to salvage some leather. Thought it would be a good learning material for making a sporran. Cheap and no loss if I muck it up. I am basing my project on the Artificer thread posted in 2010 in which he shows his process in creating a hunting sporran like the one HRH Prince Charles wears so often.

I will spare you the details of patterning and cutting. I created all of my patterns on paper then transferred to leather and cut them out. This leather is fairly thin and supple, so was able to use heavy scissors and may be able to use a sewing machine for a couple of longer seams along the gusset. The one pattern that was mysterious was the second layer of leather that makes the folded "petals" on the front. I tried a few different arcs until I found one that was satisfactory and would fit on the leather scraps. I folded the petals, held them with paper clips until they seemed distributed about right. Next I the wet the leather, made some adjustments before stapling the petals into position. The tacked the whole thing down onto cardboard to let it dry. The result was a top leather piece that held its shape with the petal folds.



Next pic shows the other pieces in place. The odd sort of sunburst shaped piece is to try and level out the leather under the round piece.



So now I get to a juncture where I could use the advice of the crowd. Overall I am very happy with the result, but there are a couple of small dings in the leather on the left hand side. I was thinking this could be hidden a bit by adding a modified tassel to the front. I need to decide before I finish the stitch around the round piece (is that called a targe?). So, thoughts? Tassel or not.