Green Birka Bag

I love my brown Hedeby bag so much, but every time I use it I think it's just a bit too big.  I don't need to keep a lot in it - just my phone, my vape, my site token, and whatever little bits of things that happen to me during the event.  I figured I'd make a smaller one "someday"...until I realized I could make one now using scraps I already had.

The bag itself was made from a remnant of green linen that I had in my scrap pile.  It's lined with a bit of an old, torn, rayon sarong in similar greens (the same sarong I used to make the trim on the black apron dress).  I cut it to 8 x 9.5" with a 3/8" seam allowance included.  The bag and lining were sewn separately, then hand-stitched together around the top.  

My Lovely Assistant

The handles were my favorite part of this project.  They're made out of a bamboo serving tray that my roommate was throwing away (modeled by Rory, above).  I knocked the sides off the tray with a hammer, then cut the handles out of one of the long sides of the tray with my jigsaw.  The bamboo was easy to cut and sand, but didn't take stain very well - the finish came out looking a little on the rustic side. (But the handles were free, so I'm not complaining).  They're stained with a light coat of Walnut-colored stain and finished with two coats of Polyshades stain-and-seal in Espresso.

Inspiration: Birka handle, Swedish
National Maritime Museum

I attached the handles to the bag by sewing them on with thick, twisted embroidery floss, looped through the holes drilled across the bottom of the handles.  I have my doubts about how well the floss will hold up to being scraped across the edges of those holes all the time, but we'll see.

The cord strap is a whipcord woven out of dark purple crochet thread - it's actually the drawstring out of a pair of pants I made years ago which have long since bit the dust. The cord is long enough for me to wear this bag as a cross-body bag.  

Not bad for a free project, I think. I dig that every part of this project was basically salvaged from the trash.  And it came out so cute!  I love the way the colors in the fabrics and the wood work together.  I can't wait to try this bag out at BAM - I'll bring it and my larger brown one with me and see which I like better, size-wise.  This bag is the last pre-event project I had lined up, and I finished it last week with two and a half weeks to go. So...

What's Next? 

I have a Viking coat that needs a bit of fixing up.  I'll be back with that next.