The bin I used to hold rolled-up straps to return them to the paramedics to use disappeared recently. I decided to make it more clear that the bin I provided was to be used for that specific purpose. I bought a recycle can at Goodwill and decorated it with straps to make it clear that it was not a trash can.

Sandra sent me this picture of Ellie playing on the beach by her Tad Bag.

For years, our county Emergency Medical Services (EMS) has used the same yellow-green trauma straps. Recently, patients have been coming in with orange, black and lemon yellow straps. What a great inspiration for any bag maker!

Here is a bumble bee bag I made out of some of the new straps.

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.