How to Make a Leather Bat Bag: Full Written Walkthrough

You can make the gothic bat bag at home from one 15 page PDF pattern, and an intermediate maker needs around 6 to 8 hours from printing to finished bag. The flap is shaped as a bat's head with sculpted ears, and two full bat wings are stitched over the front panel. This is a walkthrough of the bat bag pattern and what to prepare before you cut.

What you need before you start

The pattern page lists the materials, and none of them are included: 3.5 square feet of 6 to 7 oz chrome tan leather, 1.5 square feet of 4 to 5 oz veg tan leather, 1 mm waxed thread, two 20 mm swivel hooks, two 20 mm buckles, two 20 mm D rings and six 9 mm rivets. Lay everything out and check it against this list before you print a single page, because it is easier to order a missing buckle now than to stop halfway through the build.

Print the pattern and check the scale

The download holds three separate files for A4, US Letter and US Legal, so choose the one that matches the paper in your printer. Ten of the pages are full size pattern pages printed at exact 1:1 scale. Print the test page first. It carries 5 cm and 2 inch squares, so a ruler tells you in seconds whether your printer has resized anything. Always print at 100 percent or actual size and never fit to page. Once the squares measure correctly, print the rest, cut each sheet on the dashed border and tape the sheets together, matching the borders.

Cut and stitch the bag

Every stitching hole is pre-marked, and the wing and body holes are pre-matched, so the front and back line up the first time. That removes the slowest part of most bag builds, which is marking holes by hand and hoping they meet. The two wings are then stitched over the body on the front panel with your 1 mm waxed thread.

The exact order of the build, including how the strap hardware goes on, is shown in the free step by step video tutorial for this exact bag. Keep it open on a second screen while you work and pause it at each stage.

If something does not line up

• Pieces look the wrong size: the test page squares were not 5 cm and 2 inches. Reprint at actual size.

• Pattern sheets do not join cleanly: tape them with the dashed borders matched before you trace or cut.

• Holes seem to drift: use the pre-marked holes rather than marking new ones, because the wing and body holes were matched in advance.

Selling what you make

The licence lets you sell up to 10 finished items made from this pattern each year, on your own website, in a shop, at conventions or fairs. The files themselves may not be resold, redistributed or shared.

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