Starting Out

First I'll give you a little background on how this all started....

Until recently I worked at a Chick-fil-a in my area, which I enjoyed for a time. Then one day, after making a bag for a friend, I got a crazy idea: Why not go into business for myself making these bags? From there I saved as much as I could, spent every spare moment looking for cloth and quit my job at Chick-fil-a. I talked to my dad about my plan (which was a good idea since apart from being my dad he is also in possession a law degree) and we set a target release date: October 1st. A great goal, very reachable, until a three day trip to Colorado turned into a week trip and a plane ticket I hadn't budgeted for.

So here I am D-day+10 with two orders I still haven't finished, trying to start a blog so that maybe someone out there will tell me I am not in fact crazy for skipping collage and trying to start my own business at Twenty. But I'll stop complaining and actually show you what I've been doing... This is one of my first bags that I made. ( The VERY first going to a good friend of mine as a gift, before I could secure a picture of it.)

This bag is the biggest I've made so far measuring 23 in. Deep and 21 in. Wide.
I love to do little cool details to each bag, this one has some cute little hand bead work on the front.

I had noticed a problem with this kind of bag before, the ends of the string were attached to a metal ring that would come eventually pull away from the fabric leaving a hole the could not be repaired. I solved this problem by attaching the draw string to the body of the bag by little fabric tabs which also allow the straps to be adjusted in length. The Draw Strings themselves also created a bit of a challenge for me as well, most bags of this kind have a very small doubled over string that tends to cut into the shoulder if worn for anytime at all. My challenge was finding a string that was big enough to relieve the shoulder tension while still being small enough to work with and look good on the bag. Unfortunately I did not succeed in this task, but I managed to find something close. I ended up using a 3/16 in synthetic all purpose clothesline which worked quite well when I braided it, but was a bit expensive, only came in 50ft lengths. and was not machine washable. So the search continued, I looked at all of my local hardware stores but could not find a suitable replacement. Then one day on a whim I checked out the dollar store across the street and found a simple clothesline that met all of my requirements. I now have draw strings that are wide enough, washable and affordable!

If you are interested in a bag of your own or the one pictured in this blog post let us know! It's as simple as shooting us an e-mail! If you have any comments, questions, a bag idea or order you can reach us at: coZee27@yahoo.com