#52 large bookbag finished

Earlier this week, I shipped my latest creation, bag #52 Large Bookbag. I am very happy with the final product. It is by far the most beautiful bag I have made. The entire bag has 6540 holes and took 42 hours to create. The strap alone has 2172 hand punched holes and took 6 hours to stitch.

Bag in progress:



The strap itself is really very beautiful.




Finished product:



G had to try and get in on the action.



I love the softer structure of this bag. I wish it were mine to carry! I actually finished the bag in November but then proceeded to make handcrafted packaging, much of which required design work. I made a hand stitched, velvet pillow (not shown) and dustbag to stuff and store the bag, respectively. The box took approximately 6 hours to create out of mat board and construction paper. It took longer than usual because part had to be redone after a messy mishap with the "aggressively tacky" aerosol adhesive. (yikes!)



The certificate of authenticity includes the hand drawn stencil used to put the number on the nameplate, which is sewn into the lining of this bag.



I purchased very nice envelopes to put the certificate and a letter in. I put all the contents in the box to be shipped, but I just didn't feel right about having a single thing (or 2 actually) that was manufactured as part of my complete package. Those stupid envelopes had to go! So I scrapped them and made envelopes.

The combination of my loving the soft, new look and getting the design of all of the packaging fine tuned makes me really excited about this bag. I believe this bag will be the one that finally gets my work noticed. I'm hoping for great things to come. :)

Enjoy your weekend,

maureen