It has been fun to try to think of ways to combine trauma straps with firehoses to make new bag designs. Here is what I came up with recently.

This bag accentuates that printing that is interspersed on the firehoses:

This one is striped. It matches Shari’s shirt!

This one is striped with blue trauma straps:

I came across a rectangular sheet of relatively rigid plastic. It was just the right size to form the bottom of a bag so I used it, just as it was to reinforce the bottom of this bag. I sewed it in between two layers of black straps so the bottom is not only rectangular, which is unusual for my bags, but is also stiffer so it stands up straight.

Also, this is the first bag I have sewn since the county changed recently to black and orange rather than yellow-green straps. Since I can only use what they bring me, I now have lots of black to inspire me.

Susan took trauma straps with her to a chimpanzee reserve in Gabon. She shared these pictures of baby chimps swinging on the straps. What a great use of these straps that otherwise would have ended up in the trash!

My mother-in-law recently had surgery. She lives in a town called Paradise. When we unpacked, I saw the bags we used to get our stuff up there and lined them up on the washer and dryer. What a bag family we have become.

Here is the bag I made for my mother for Mother’s Day. The blue straps are an unusual color and I used every inch of that type of strap I had to make the bag. In fact, I used short handles because I didn’t have enough of the blue to make two long handles.

Our son, Philip graduated in May from University of Virginia. I made three bags to give to the families of three of his classmates. These bags are the perfect color and, which the logo decals, look like they might have come right out of the UVA bookstore.

Years ago, I was waking in the afternoon after sleeping all day after a night shift. An idea came into my brain as to a way I might be able to make strap bags in a different and perhaps more efficient manner. I couldn’t wait to sit down and give it a try. It worked so well that it has been the basis of my bag construction since then. These three bags were made with a variation that I hoped would make me even more efficient. I don’t think you could tell by looking at them but, I tried something different on these. I will need to practice some more before I will know if it is actually better or not.

I have been sewing the two base circles parallel to each other all around, butting the ends of each strap together. Then, I started circling the straps the rest of the way up. This time, I actually sewed the contrasting color to a full strap and started circling right from the beginning.

I have been spending quite a bit of time and effort lately on zippers. The beauty of my bag design is that it is it uses the shape and edges of the straps efficiently. Unfortunately, it is a real pain to add a zipper to them, as I have been making them. So, I have made several bags lately trying to figure out a slick way to zipperize them.

The Hancock Fabrics near us is going out of business so I was able to buy a bunch of blue zippers at a good deal to go with the black ones I scored at Fabmo.

Here is a blue bag I made with a zipper. More zipper ideas to follow!

When visiting our daughter recently in New York City, I had the chance to give her BFF, Deb a bag. She looks appreciative!

My friend, Eric, came to own several firehoses. Though they had never been used, they were worthless unless someone could come up with an idea for repurposing. He offered one to me to see if they could be made into a bag. I was skeptical but gave it a try. Though they presented some interesting challenges, here is what I came up with on first pass:

First, what the firehose looks like:

What the bags looked like:

And it made me happy:

And it made Eric happy:

Oh, and here is a salt shaker I made out of the nozzle and a connector: