Sonia shared this picture of her Tad Bag taking it easy by the pool for The Fourth.

Someone at work asked for a small bag with narrow stripes. When I sat down to make her one, I got the crazy idea to just make a batch. I worked on them all week and came out with nine. None is like another. Two are small with a single handle. Here there are, individually and as a group.

When my wife mentioned that we needed to go to Toys R Us to buy a baby shower gift for our niece, Hannah, I offered to make her a bag instead. I was able to come up with something that I am sure no other new mother in Amarillo, Texas will have.

One of our registration clerks asked me to make a bag he could carry on his back and showed me the one he was using as an example. I was able to come up with something similar to what he had but with that Tad Bag difference.

Manu

Chip is my wife’s cousine and my mountain bike riding budy. He and his wife, Debbie, sent me this picture of their bag visiting Independence Hall in Philidelphia.

Here is my niece, Natalie, with her new bag.

As I carry bags of used trauma straps out of the emergency department, comments are often made that show people  have a vision that I make every strap into a bag. The only way I could possibly do that would be to sew bags full time. Let’s see: It takes about two hours or so to sew up a bag. It took me about six weeks to collect the last 900 straps I sent to RAFT . It takes about four straps per bag. So, if all those straps had gone into bags, I would have had to have spent about about 75 hours per week if I had sewn them all into bags! It is a good thing that RAFT will take them, to keep them out of the land fill. I would be swimming in them if they were all here at my house.

I have told you before about RAFT. It is a great place where teachers can go and buy stuff that has been discarded, mostly by industry, for use as teaching aids. Check it out at:

http://www.raftbayarea.org/membership?gclid=CNeY1qzb1L0CFc1cfgodDWYAEA

Here is the back of my car with the 900 straps I donated this week.

When we were vacationing with the kids last summer, we were in a Goodwill store, looking for treasures. As crazy as it sounds, this is one of our family’s favorite pastimes.  In the store, I found a ratty old purse and bought it for fifty cents. I came home, took the wooden handles off the purse and threw the rest of it away. After some sanding and spray painting, they were ready to put on a new bag. It turned out just right for my mom’s birthday.

Here are the creator and the happy recipient.

This week’s bag is not too different from past yellow and black bags but I was careful to make sure the lines were all parallel and it came out nicely.

Last weekend, I gave my wife’s very nice bag away to my sister-in-law with a promise I would make a new one to replace it. In order to be good to my word, I spent some time this last week carefully making a bag that, with all due humility, is the nicest bag I have ever made. I was very careful at each step of construction. I wanted it to be prefect for her and, though there is no such thing as perfection in this endeavor, it is, for sure, the best bag I have ever made.

Orange with black trim. Large and symetrical

This is detail on the inside: zippered pocket with pen slots. A carabiner for car keys.

From the end, a black stripe up the side.