Making Things Tiny

~3x5--8/07--Cordura & Sunbrella

So, yeah, small things are kinda tricky to make 'cause you have about zero room for error. But here are some experiments in wallet/coin purse design I did for my pal Brianne. The middle one is probably going to be the most useful one for her. The one on the right is my favorite, and a design employed by craft wizard Doc Pop. And is actually a variation on a design from bag revolutionary Erik Zo.

You can find Doc Pop's wallets on his Etsy site, Zo's on eBay, and mine in my pants.

The wallet on the right is neat 'cause it has a sweet coin-catching feature. Your change goes behind the blue fabric and your cards/cash in front. Open it up, tip it forward and all your change slides to the cupped end where you can easily pick for your silver and copper. Nice.

Walkin' Round Town

Magazine
10x11x3.5—8/07—Cordura & Sunbrella
Well, now isn't this just a darling little bag. Ha.
Your everyday, small, walkin' round, shoulder, musette, gasmask bag, I suppose. I like it plenty.
Expand-o-matic. Zoop.I've been having trouble with the shoulder-bag catch-22 with this size and shape of bag. You know: if you want a bag that won't leak in the rain you can't make the opening too big, but if you want to actually put stuff in or take stuff out with relative ease, you can't make it too small either. I think most people would rather have quick access to their things, 'cause, let's face it, who walks around in the rain all the time? ...Well, I do enough to want a bag that does both things. And I cheat the catch-22 by sewing compression straps or para cord to the lip of the bag so everything fits nicely under the flap at all times. I've been doing this A-OK with my trapezoidal messenger bags, but with the smaller, squarer musette bags here I'd been running into another problem: sewability (and the compression system worked but it wasn't really as tight as I'd've liked).
On previous bags, I had to sew the corners by hand with a sewing awl—which is a pain in the ass. So I was pretty much done with that design forever—content to make trapezoidal bags and nothing more. But then I was like, Man, I need a square bag for laptops and stuff. So this is what I came up with: Move the shoulder strap ends out to the edges more and connect the compression strap to the shoulder strap. Now I can sew everthing on the machine and it closes like a champ. Hoo-ray.
It's not perfect. But it's close. This bag doesn't have a floating liner, which sucks, 'cause sewing grosgrain on nine layers of fabric is not my idea of fun. And I'm not sure if I can even do a floating liner with this small a bag. I could on my light sewing machine. Just put it in pant hemmin' mode... I'm going to try with the thirteen-inch bag I'm making next. Hopefully that'll work out. We shall see.

'Sup Bro

19x12x6—8/07—Cordura, Top Gun, Sunbrella
Yeah, so that totally says "bro" in Sanskrit. Rad.
This is a super-custom messenger bag for my roommate—custom everything: colors, pockets, dimensions, construction, appliqué... Though, it's based off of a design that I'm going to start using a lot... Oh, just look at all those pen pockets inside!

Small Bag

14x10x4--8/07--Cordura & Top Gun

Hey, hey, hey, here's a prototype for a small bag. Pretty cute, huh?I think I made the lip too big. Woops. I'll probably put a compression strap on future bags.

Here's the bag with my new Bianchi San Jose. Columbia doesn't have a Bianchi dealer, so I had to order it from Glory Cycles in Florida. Nice dudes.