Making a 14th to 15th Century Leather Belt Bag: Part 1

Hi friends! This is my process in creating a medieval leather belt pouch. I will be attending a medieval event next week, and I have commissioned an amazing dress to debut. It is a custom Trossfrau dress with a twist (no spoilers!) Trossfrau refers to the women who traveled with German Landsknecht warriors. This style of dress was popular from the late 1400’s through the 1500’s. Here is an example of a Landsknecht and Trossfrau.

My dress is in the final stages, and I’ve probably done close to 30 hours of hand sewing for this thing. To have a real finished look, I need a few accessories. My shoes arrived from Boots By Bohemond (which can be found here: https://boots-by-bohemond.myshopify.com/collections/shoes/products/landsknecht-tudor-shoe ) and they are amazing. They really add to the overall look. Nothing can ruin a period look like not having the right footwear.

Bohemond actually has belt bags in the same style that I am looking for, but for whatever reason I didn’t get around to ordering one. No worries, I have leather, so I decided to make my own. The look I wanted is commonly referred to as a “kidney bag” or “kidney pouch” because it resembles the basic shape of a kidney or kidney bean. Here is the inspiration for my bag:

Since this is my very first attempt at making something like this, I decided to keep it very simple. I would love to have the extra little coin pouches on the outside that some versions had, but I decided that was above my skill level for now.

First step in this process was drafting my pattern. It took a couple of tries to get the perfect shape, but I recycled an old calendar for this purpose. I made sure to make it big enough to hold at least my cell phone. In the future I am actually going to make a leather cover to camouflage it at my medieval events.

The top form in this last picture was not the right shape. The bottom pattern is the one I settled on.

Here I have the main body of the bag traced onto a soft leather, and the pattern for the belt loop and top flap is traced onto stiffer leather. Both pieces of leather are actually the same weight, but the soft leather has been worked and tumbled. When the pieces are sewn together I will actually sew them inside out, and turn them. Using the softer leather makes this much easier.

When I went to buy leather dye and sealer, I believe there was a bit of miscommunication with the store clerk. He instructed me to first rub leather conditioner onto the leather, then the dye, then the sealer. This seemed.... wrong. I decided to cut leather for 2 separate bags, that way I didn’t waste time (I only have a week!) if he did give me incorrect information. There was also a small flaw in the top flap of the first bag I cut out, that I did not realize was there until after. Another reason to cut out 2.

After cutting the pieces out, I smoothed the edges with a bit of fine sand paper. This helps get rid of any rough cuts.

So, one set of pieces I went ahead and rubbed it down with the leather conditioner.

I then used black alcohol based leather dye from Tandy Leather.

The bottom piece is one I rubbed with the leather conditioner. As you can see, the dye didn’t really take to it. It was expected. I did do a second coat, and did not rub the excess off, but left it to dry.

It has stayed very wet, but I am going to allow all of the pieces about 48 hrs to dry. In my next post I will be sealing the leather, then stitching all of the pieces together for my first set of medieval belt pouches. Thanks for looking!