A Project Bag Commission

You may recall the custom project bag I made for one of my repeat Etsy customers back at the beginning of August. Well, she emailed me asking if I would make a set of four custom bags for her! They hold her ongoing knitting and crocheting projects, and I may just have to make a couple of these since our collaboration!

All four of these bags, as is the case with her previous ones, use Zipper Valley (a Canadian company in Toronto) zipper tape and pulls. Lana was extremely patient because Brady was here, and she commented to me that family comes first, and when I didn't have any blue or aqua big teeth zippers from ZV, just the regular garment-style narrow ones, she was fine with waiting for an order I had to place to arrive. Talk about a good customer! She just loves how they open wide like a little bucket.

Inside view of all four light-coloured linings--pretty, pretty!

This order of four had four different sizes, from my regular five squares wide by three high (not counting the bottom) blue one, to the largest purple one, six by five.

Adorable zipper tape, n'est-ce pas?

I'm so impressed that it stands tall and doesn't collapse. It has cotton/polyester batting inside.

The aqua bag, 6x4, turned out so pretty, I think I need to replicate it. Lana gave me the colours she wanted, and I pulled all the squares (had to cut quite a few, but somehow my 2.5" squares tray has barely gotten any more room in it), laid them out, and gave her three or four extra to sub in. She'd sub in where she wanted, and move some around, so between the size and the fabric choices and placement, it really was a collaboration. A most happy one.

Those silver heart pulls jumped into my cart when I bought the zipper tapes! Just over $1 each, they're worth it.

Because Lana is such a wonderful customer, and kindred spirit in multiple ways with our convos over the past month, I whipped up a pencil case for her son who's five, and popped it in the package as a surprise for her and him. He loved it, and she told me he carried it around with him all the next day!

She had mentioned she was doing her exercise routine for 15 minutes while he watched cartoons, so I figured this leftover Spiderman fabric from a pair of pj shorts I'd made for Brady a few year ago would be in order. And it was!

I used a laminated Kona as the lining. I used it in my pencil case I made years ago and it's pretty slick, ha, pun not originally intended. Wipes clean easily.

A note about my gorgeous mandevilla vine in the background: it's from last year. I over-wintered it in my yoga room, took a couple of cuttings, one of which survived and is thriving, cut it back pretty hard in late spring, and it's blossomed (pun intended!), absolutely magnificent. I took two more cuttings off her and they're doing very well too, so I may have a 'hedge' of mandevilla next summer. I'm okay with that!

Lana sent me these two photos of the first custom-made project bag in forest green in action.

About 120g of yarn here

Love it!