I recently attended a webinar hosted by Ellie Lum of Klum House. She’s a Portland bag maker who I’ve followed for a couple of years after I made one of her patterns as my first tote bag in my new journey (see the Freemont bag). The webinar was titled “From Bag Maker to Designer Challenge” and got me thinking about how to move along to the next phase of my bag making process. I appreciated her approach to bag design, especially her focus on prototyping, which she says could take up to 10 different iterations before the design is finalized. This helped free me from believing the first bag I make should be perfect. Instead, now I’m making the first bag as an educational exercise: what can I learn about this pattern before I make it for real? I tried this process when I made the bowling bag for Michelle. I first made one for myself using materials I had in my stash and followed the pattern pretty closely, making notes about what I liked and didn’t like along the way. Then when I started on the “final” version, I felt confident that it would come out ok.
One of the exercises Ellie talked about is creating a mood/vision board and I found this to be incredibly helpful as I pondered where my bag making needs to go. The images I put on my board helped me decide that I’m interested in hands-free bags (crossbody or backpack) in softer materials like corduroy or ultrasuede. You can see my vision board on Pinterest here. I found a pattern for a bucket bag with cinched top covered with a flap and backpack straps that I’m really excited about. I found a beautiful charcoal corduroy fabric that will be perfect for winter. And if the first bag turns out well, I’ll make a second one for Karla, tweaking as needed.
Attending the webinar helped me to recharge and refocus. I now feel energized to embark on the next phase of my journey, using more difficult patterns and materials to make beautiful, useful bags.