Leather Magikarp Pouch

I'm an avid Pokemon Go player and have a Pokemon Go Plus Plus autocatcher that I wanted to be able to grab and go even when I don't have pockets on me. This project was inspired by a whale flex frame pouch by theparchmentleather, and magikarp seemed like the perfect Pokemon to go with the marine inspiration. I made two versions shown in the first picture above: one where only one side has the magikarp face on it, and a second where one face is regular magikarp and the other face is shiny magikarp.

1. Printed pattern (attached to this step) and masking tape to tape it onto the leather before cutting
2. Note that I've made two printable patterns, one for a single-sided pouch and another for a double-sided pouch. They're the same shapes across both of them, just at different quantities
3. Leather
4. I get most of my leather from Etsy and I cobbled together the pieces using scraps of previous projects. Everything I used is 3-4oz (1.2 - 1.6mm thick) medium to soft temper pebble grain leather. Links to the original listings are as shown below:
5. For the regular magikarp side, I used this wine red, this pink, this mustard, this white (Boston off-white), and this black
6. For the shiny magikarp side, I used this mustard, this nude, this white (Boston off-white), and this black
7. Thin pleather for lining the inside. You can also choose to finish the inside by burnishing it with tokonole
8. Pricking irons and hammer
9. I use French pricking irons, 3.85mm spacing. At minimum you'll need a 2 prong one, in order to do curves.
10. Thread
11. I used 0.6mm cream ritza tiger thread for stitching the white details and 0.6mm grey ritza tiger thread for the dark details (fins and tail). These packs come with stitching needles too.
12. Leather stitching needles (if you didn't get them from the ritza packs already). Leather needles have a blunter tip than regular sewing needles so that you don't sew through the thread while saddle stitching
13. Flex frame
14. The regular magikarp one I made uses a 90mm flex frame, and that's what my pattern's sizing references. The one I made with regular and shiny magikarp on different sides uses a narrower flex frame with loops that I got from in person shipping in Japan, so I don't have links and can't find it online unfortunately.
15. PS: The size I made is perfect for an autocatcher but you could easily scale the pattern to fit a 120mm flex frame, which is big enough for most phones.
16. If you want to turn this into a bag, you'll also need 2x Ø1" key rings and a bag strap for the single sided version. For the double sided version... it's more difficult to make it a bag without the type of flex frame I used. You could add small rectangular protrusions on the sides where you could attach key rings and a strap.
17. The bag strap I used is just from Daiso
18. Stitching pony
19. This is the one I use
20. Lighter/thread zap for cleaning up thread ends
21. Xacto knife or other method for cutting your leather
22. Ø5/64" or similar punch for the pupils
23. I use this handheld puncher
24. Scissors
25. Cutting mat
26. Punching/pricking surface
27. Ecoweld (or similar water-based contact adhesive) for joining leather pieces together
28. (optional) Tokonole for cleaning up the cut edges - fins, tail, etc. You can't burnish the edges of this type of soft pebbled leather I used so I just applied a coat of tokonole.

As far as leather work goes, this is a solid intermediate project - the complicated part is handling the curvy cuts and figuring out clean stitching alignment. Practice on scrap leather: practice cutting out leather, getting clean and aligned cuts, using punches, and stitching.

There are plenty of leathercrafting basics tutorials online (I also just learned by watching a ton of videos) but here are links to the two types of stitches I used: saddle stitching and cross stitching.

1. This is a great video on saddle stitching leather (goes into pricking holes also). I've never actually used a groover like you'll see in the video, and I didn't find it necessary for the soft pebbled leather I was using.
2. This is a closeup of classic saddle stitching
3. This is by far the best video I've found to explain cross stitching.

Decide if you want a double sided or single sided magikarp pouch and print + cut out the corresponding pattern. They're technically the same patterns, just with different numbers of leather pieces to cut out for each shape. It'll be easier to use the pieces (and re-use them) if you glue the printed template to stiff chipboard (like from cereal boxes) before cutting the shapes out. In the next steps, I'll walk you through specifically how to cut out the pattern pieces, along with tips and such.

The "Body" pieces are the only ones that get lining. Cut out two pieces of the pleather liner slightly larger than the body shape and use contact adhesive to stick them onto the leather, raw faces facing each other. Skip the liner if you plan to just use tokonole + burnishing to finish the raw face.

Once the adhesive is dry and the liner is firmly stuck on, cut out mirrored pieces of the body shape out of the glued up leather. (Note that my pattern is symmetrical in the middle, but I find it good practice to cut the mirror anyway in case you have inaccuracies from when you cut out the template in the first place.) To get the mirror, flip the pattern when you cut the second piece.

If you plan on doing a shiny and regular magikarp like I did, make sure you have the correct colors for the mirror: keep the orientation in my pattern for all pieces of either the shiny or regular version, and use the mirrored orientation for the other version.

Prick the holes along the top straight edge of both body pieces. If you are doing a single-sided pouch, prick the back curved line only on the panel that will be your "detailed" side. If you are doing a double-sided pouch, prick the back curved line on both. The detailed section with the scales will be pricked later.

Similar to the body panels, you'll want to cut out mirrored copies of the "Scales", "Top Fin", and "Bottom Fin" shapes if you're doing a double-sided pouch (you only need one for single-sided). This is done out of leather that isn't lined.

Again, if you plan on doing a shiny and regular magikarp like I did, make sure you have the correct colors for the mirror: keep the orientation in my pattern for all pieces of either the shiny or regular version, and use the mirrored orientation for the other version.

A tip for cutting out these pointy tips: cut your leather without the tips, as shown in the second image above. After that's cut out, cut out the remaining triangles to get the points.

Prick the holes only along the long straight edge of the scales panel for now. The rest will be pricked later.

You'll need mirrored copies of the "Top Fin" and "Bottom Fin" shapes, for both the single-sided and double-sided versions. However, to make sure that they're perfectly mirrored, the best way is to glue your two pieces of leather together and let that dry before cutting out the fin shapes. You can do it for this shape as opposed to what you did for the Body and Scales shapes because the fins ultimately get glued together, unlike the body and scale panels.

Again, if you plan on doing a shiny and regular magikarp like I did, make sure you have the correct colors for the mirror - do this before you cut. Use the same "pointy tip" trick described in the previous Scales step for getting nice tips.

Finish by pricking holes along the bottom long edges of the top and bottom fins where shown in the pattern.

The eyes and mouth don't need to be mirrored. You need two eyes if you're doing a double-sided pouch, and only one for single-sided. You'll need 2 mouth pieces for both though.

The outer eye circles were cut out of white leather and then I used a Ø5/64" punch to make a hole for the pupils. I cut the pupils out of black leather using the same size punch and inserted the black into the white pockets with contact adhesive. The eyes were finished by coating the edges with a layer of tokonole. For the eyes, alternatively you can see my first version in the very first picture above: I made an X stitch like a cartoon dead fish, instead of putting a circular pupil.

For the mouth pieces, you can go ahead and prick holes along the top and bottom long edges, per the pattern. The eyes just get glued on so no holes needed.

These are the hardest ones to cut due to the alignment. For the purposes of typing out instructions, I'll mention white and red as the colors of the fins but you would use yellow instead of red for the shiny magikarp version.

Tail: start by cutting out 1 white and 1 red piece of leather slightly larger than the "Tail" shape. Tape them together, with the red leather's raw side facing the white leather's pebbled side, and tape the tail pattern piece to the red pebbled leather side as shown in the first image. Cut out the tail shape from both pieces of leather. This is tricky: do your best to cut through both pieces of leather without having the leather shift, or else the alignment will be off!

Next, tape the "Tail Trim" pattern piece to the red leather pebbled side as shown in the second image above. Then cut out the tail trim piece from both pieces of leather by following along that inner curved edge of the shape. When you separate all your pieces, you should see all the pieces as shown in the third image above. You can see that the tail is made out of the red Tail Trim piece and white Tail piece - the purpose of stacking the red and white leather for the cuts was to ensure that the cuts line up perfectly together. Do this a second time with the mirror orientation to get two mirrored tails (shown in the fourth image above with my yellow shiny magikarp tail).

To combine the two mirrored tails (sorry I don't have pictures of this part), cut out a "Tail" shaped piece of liner leather that will act as backing that you sandwich between the mirrored tail pieces to connect them. Glue everything together to get your finished tail, which looks the same from both sides.

Side fins: same process as the tail, except that it is not double-sided like the tail since you only see one side of the fin. Start by cutting out 1 white and 1 red piece of leather slightly larger than the "Side Fin" shape. Tape them together, with the red leather's raw side facing the white leather's pebbled side, and tape the tail pattern piece to the red pebbled leather side. Cut out the fin shape from both pieces of leather. Next, tape the "Side Fin Trim" pattern piece to the red leather pebbled side. Then cut out the side fin trim piece from both pieces of leather by following along that inner curved edge of the shape. You can see that the side fin is made out of the red Side Fin Trim piece and white Side Fin piece - the purpose of stacking the red and white leather for the cuts was to ensure that the cuts line up perfectly together. To finish the fin, you'll need to cut out a mirror version of "Side Fin" out of red leather which will be glued (raw sides facing) to the back of the side fin pieces as a backing.

You'll only need one side fin for the single-sided version, but be sure to mirror the fin if you are doing the double-sided pouch version!

(side note for hindsight comments: to get the edges even neater, I should've tried cutting only the adjacent edge between the trim and white piece, gluing them together to a backing, and then cutting out the exterior shape - that way the edges would've been lined up better. Sorry that it's hard to explain in words.. easier to understand after trying it once)

This is what my pieces looked like, all cut out and arranged! This is a good image to show why you need to make sure your mirror orientations are correct.

Note that there's only one tail shown because the red magikarp tail is on the backside of the yellow one; the tail is double-sided. Also note that my top and bottom fins aren't glued together yet: I didn't realize that the alignment would be easier if I glued the leather together before cutting out the shape, which is what I recommended here in this tutorial.

Pebbled leather edges like this can't be burnished so take the time now to apply tokonole on the raw edges of the cut leather. I marked those edges as blue in the template. Don't forget like I did and have to apply when parts are already glued together, like shown in the picture above haha.

To add the details on the tail, prick the holes in the locations shown in the pattern but do so as shown in the images above: you'll want to do only the "left" side holes, flip the tail, and then do the remaining holes. This way the slant of the French irons will be mirrored and the detail will look nicer. Once the holes are made, go ahead and saddle stitch through them with dark thread. This only applies to the dark details; the white stitching on the edge of the tail can be done in one continuous go.

Nothing special is needed for the side fins: prick the holes in the locations shown in the pattern before saddle stitching through with dark thread. Do not stitch the white thread along the top trim yet: this will be done when you attach them to the body.

Butt one long straight edges of the mouth piece to the body panel's straight edge and cross stitch the sides together as shown in the pictures above. You'll want to have the pebbled side of the mouth panel and the liner side of the body panel facing up as shown in the first image. Do this for both body and mouth panels, whether or not you're doing a double-sided or single-sided pouch.

Apply glue on the raw side of the scales panel and attach the scales on top of the body panel, aligning the long straight edges of both. Make sure that the holes pricked along that straight edge are aligned: you can use needles to poke through the holes to be sure of this, as shown in the second image above. Do this only for the detailed body panel if you're doing a single-sided pouch, and do it for both body panels if you're doing a double-sided pouch.

Saddle stitch across the back curved line in the body panel. Do this only for the detailed body panel if you're doing a single-sided pouch, and do it for both body panels if you're doing a double-sided pouch.

To add detailing for the scales on the body, begin by pricking your holes starting at the pointed tips. First put your irons where shown in the first picture and prick from this middle point down both edges. Have one hole directly centered relative to the bottom V.

Next you'll want to do the short extensions from the bottom of the valley parts, shown in the third picture. Make two holes directly below the "one hole directly centered relative to the bottom V" mentioned previously. You can see the alignment of holes in the third picture.

Finally, prick the final line of holes across the body. To get nice spacing, start from the end of a short extension from the bottom of the valley parts, and go left and right to meet other short extensions.

Do this only for the detailed body panel if you're doing a single-sided pouch, and do it for both body panels if you're doing a double-sided pouch.

Saddle stitch through the holes you pricked in the previous step for the scale details. To do this, I started by saddle stitching across the pointy parts, and then with new thread, I stitched across the bottom curved line. See the first picture: blue lines are with the first thread and orange is with the second thread. I've marked the start points with S and end points with E.

Stitching across the pointy parts is pretty straightforward. The bottom curved line is tricky because it has the short bits in between. To do that, you'll basically saddle stitch like normal but poke your needles backwards to get back to the main long line. Follow the arrows and notes in the third to seventh pictures above.

Now that the stitching details are done, you can finish the mouth. Fold the mouth panels in half and as a sanity check, make sure the flex frame you have can slide through that channel. Saddle stitch the mouth in half using the same holes from the cross stitch joint, shown in the first image above. It's a little tricky to get the needle through all the layers so use pliers as needed...

Do this for both body and mouth panels, whether or not you're doing a double-sided or single-sided pouch.

Now that you've finished the scale details, you can position the eye properly. Use contact adhesive to glue them in place.

Do this only for the detailed body panel if you're doing a single-sided pouch, and do it for both body panels if you're doing a double-sided pouch.

The side fins get stitched on using the first 4 holes (to make 3 saddle stitches through with the body). Use tape to position the side fin on the body and prick the first 4 holes along the top trim. Then take the side fin off the body and finish pricking the holes along the top trim if you haven't already.

Saddle stitch through the four holes you pricked through the side fin and body to attach the two pieces. When you make the third stitch, do it like normal but to get the thread on the correct sides of the side fin to finish stitching the trim part, follow the steps shown in the second to fifth pictures above - you basically run the thread that is on the inside of the body back around and between the fin and body instead.

Do this only for the detailed body panel if you're doing a single-sided pouch, and do it for both body panels if you're doing a double-sided pouch.

Now you're FINALLY ready to sew the body together!!

If you are making a single magikarp side and want loops to add a strap, cut out 2x of the key ring attachments if you want to add a strap. Technically you should mirror them like the body and scale parts in case you have inaccuracies from when you cut out the template in the first place, but it's not a big deal if you're feeling lazy.

Fold each pieces in half and use contact adhesive to glue that together, leaving a small section in the middle unglued so you can still string a key ring through. Let that dry.

Use tape to hold them in place relative to the back body panel and prick holes on the per the pattern. Saddle stitch the parts on and now you have a place for key rings/strap attachment.

(sorry that I only have finished pictures of this step, but feel free to leave comments if it's unclear)

The body gets sewn together using cross stitches, with the crosses facing inside the pouch. Stitch until you get to the first part of the scale detail - this is where you'll start attaching the fins. In this case I am attaching the bottom fin since I started with the bottoms of the body. To attach the bottom fin, you basically do the same cross stitch except that you run the needles through the bottom fin's pricked holes as you go. See the arrows in the above pictures for reference. Once you've attached the bottom fin, continue stitching until you get to where you'll attach the tail. I used 6 holes (5 saddle stitches) to attach the tail so I counted out where those 6 holes would be in the back to know where to stop (see fifth picture above for reference). For that last saddle stitch before attaching the tail, I passed the needles through the same holes not the crossed holes like shown in the last picture above.

I attached the tail by saddle stitching through all the layers. It's tricky because you transition from the cross stitching to saddle stitching. Follow the arrows and notes in the above pictures for how I handled the transition.

Continue cross stitching the body until you reach ~7 holes (or as many holes as are pricked in your top fin) away from the scale detail stitching - you basically want to match the position for the top fin as the bottom fin. To attach the top fin, it's the same as the bottom fin: you basically do the same cross stitch except that you run the needles through the top fin's pricked holes as you go. See the arrows in the above pictures for reference. Once the top fin is attached, it's smooth sailing with just cross stitches until you've fully connected the body panels. Then just cut and burn your threads to complete!

Now just slide the flex frame through the top channels and you've got a new magikarp pouch to carry things around! I'm stoked with how the double-sided shiney/regular look turned out.

Feel free to leave comments if you run into questions, and enjoy!