Wallet of Devouring

Remember that Bag of Holding?  The client liked that so much they put in an order for a Wallet designed after it's infamous cousin: the Bag of Devouring.  We used the same basic construction (milled veg-tan shell, canvas lining) for a tri-fold clutch wallet with space for cards, cash, change, and the client's cell phone.  I might've added a little more space for the cards or tightened the elastics for the phone a bit more on the whole I think it came out pretty well.

Tan Wallet

This was a quick commission for my brother-in-law.  The design is patterned off a prototype I built a couple years ago and have been using for myself so I'm pretty confident in the general design.  I cut down on some of the build time by removing any semblance of a cash pocket and streamlining the card pockets a bit.  I figured I could seal the fabric and keep it from fraying by "cauterizing" the edges but that's had the unintended effect of warping the edges a bit.  After spending the night in traction most of that warping's gone away but I suppose we'll have to see how it works out over time.

Wallet Lanyard Mark II

The gentleman who was so pleased with his wallet lanyard last year contacted me to make him a second one, practically identical but two times as long.  The project was a little delayed due to a shortage in my supply chain but I was able to get it off to him just after New Years.

Testimonial: Wallet Lanyard

It's always nice hearing from clients once they've gotten their orders but this just made my day.

Wow! This is one beautiful piece sir. I love it! It's exactly what I wanted. I didn't want anything too showy -- low key, but well made was the plan. Thank you very much for your thoughtfulness and custom touches. Your workmanship is superb sir!

Wallet Lanyard

I happen to come from a place where it's pretty common to keep your wallet on a chain but I can't say I'd ever done it myself.  So when I was asked to braid a custom lanyard I admit I had to google wallet lanyards to remind myself of the details.  The client had just obtained a very nice deerskin wallet and they were looking for a matching lanyard.  Deerskin is a bit unusual as a braiding material because it lacks the tensile strength of other leathers.  It's very soft and supple and comfy, but the low tensile strength makes it challenging to braid.

I reinforced the braid on the whole by giving it a latigo core that's fixed to the anchors (cut from some bison leather) which hold some solid brass trigger snaps for fasteners.  That sentence might be a lot of mumbo jumbo but it amounts to the deerskin being a part of the structure without having to bear much, if any force or stress along the lanyard.  It's a simple little thing but I put a fair bit of thought into it and I'm pretty happy with the result.

Finalized Card Sleeve

It took a few renditions but I managed to make a version of the card sleeve that feels complete.  It's plenty roomy for all the cards that might need to be crammed into it with ample space for petty cash and some business cards and it's still pretty darn slim.  It feels pretty tiny in my back pocket but I know the materials well enough to know that it'll be anything but flimsy.

Prototype: Card Sleeve

I was introduced to the notion of the Card Sleeve on a recent(ish) video on Tested and wanted to build my own take on it right away.  I happened to be working on a Trifold at the time anyway so my mental draft board was already percolating the geometry of a wallet.  Trifolds and Bifolds are old, classic designs for wallets but something about the notion of the cardsleeve seems so much more appealing.  Perhaps it's the compact form factor or the way it hides away the cards you don't need too often.  Either way, I came up with my own take that's a little larger than the one in the Tested video.  I barely ever carry cash but I carry a variety of cards and I like to sort them into at least two pockets (ID & Money) so I made sure I could do that with my prototype.

From design to completion the build only took a couple days (which is pretty damn fast for a prototype) and I'm reasonably pleased with it.  It needs some refinement before it's something I can sell but in the meantime I'll be carrying the prototype in my pocket.  Once it's the right mix of durability, convenience, and practicality I'm looking forward to offering it in my store.

Prototype: Wallet of Holding

My wife, glorious person that she is, has been using the same battered, beaten, worn old cloth wallet since she was old enough to tell quarters from dimes.  That was quite some time ago though so the thing is more worn out than Scrooge's ratty old coat.  She's been asking me to make her a leather one for awhile, and at first I made one from a kit, but neither of us were very happy with it.  This time she furnished the original wallet itself so I could reverse engineer it.

The geometry is a fair bit more complicated than most wallets tend to be.  To look at the insert it seems like a simple trifold but it's actually two interlocking "V"s that hold a zippered pocket between where they overlap.  That zippered pocket is what makes this design relatively unique and it's exactly what she likes about it.  It's where she keeps all those quarters and dimes.

It took a fair while to grok the entire geometry, and being a prototype it didn't come out perfect.  The insert came out a 1/4" too long and had to be trimmed and there were some hidden aspects of the card pockets that I wouldn't have been able to see without dismantling the old wallet.  But this is why we make prototypes, to figure out the surprises ahead of time.  In the meaning time, it's a perfectly fit and stable wallet and she seems content with it so I'm content with it.  I'll probably modify the design a bit if I choose to use this pattern as a line of products, but now I have all the information I'll need to do so.