Camelus, an Animal About Relationships...

This bag is about relationships. In this picture alone you see six distinct sources based on commerce, trust, friendship, or love, and sometimes all of them together.

So many things--well everything, went right here. I am very happy--ecstatic :-D Here's the story:

The white linen body: I was visiting a friend in Bavaria, a woman about ten years older than me, with literally thousands of books in her home, including a wood-burning furnace, and I was talking about my bag-making (this was three years ago), and she pressed this beautiful vintage luxery-linen from Italy into my hands. She looked into my eyes and said, 'Do you know how much the women I know spend on bags?' She was just trying to be helpful, to perhaps emphasis the reality of the situation. But when she said 'on average 500 Euros for a bag, every year' I was just dumbstruck. This would almost be the price of a roundtrip ticket to the States. But then she said something that I remember today--'those same women, they might be looking for Gucci, but a few of them are looking for something so exclusive it cannot be had.'

To be honest, I do not go for Gucci. I would never want to look like a walking label. The older I get, the more I stick to my eccentric beginnings. Under no circumstance would I want to get into hardware, or slick leather...yuck! I am a snob of the purist genre...

The label: somewhere, in Florida, there is a woman with the most prudent eye and discerning taste who has my welfare in mind and is one of my biggest fans and emotional supporters--my mom. She picked up this beautiful antique embroidered linen band (originally used to hold together linens in a rich household). I tea-stained it and made a label. I will never make a label with my name on it. I cut off the labels on my clothes.

The strap: I'm taking a weaving course from a master-weaver in our village. I asked her, rather sheepishly, if she had any throw-away scraps I might be able to use--and she gave me a small ziplock bag full. I was a little let down--she had so few scraps, but when you weave you use almost everything for the end product--but when I got home I got to experimenting, and a beautiful strap evolved. More beautiful than I could imagine. The underside is barkcloth I bought at an antique market on the beach in Florida, one breathtakingly sunny winter's day...

The Bedouin embroidery: some beautiful person trusted me, heart and soul, and trusted I would put some of her precious material to good use. I was a complete stranger--but she trusted me...and a beautiful friendship has blossumed. Not only that--getting my hands on this exquisite embroidery gave me the freedom to stretch my creativity further than I would have dreamt.

The lining (inside of bag contains two large slip pockets, a large zippered pocket, and a magnetic snap): I have a little tailor in the city next door, who has a shelf full of Dutch and London waxed cotton. He keeps a few precious items in a glass cabinet, and this handmade waxed cotton on damask went for a pretty price. (translate that--it was expensive). It was just a small piece, and I've nearly run out--after making myself a pillow and kitchen curtains and a few other bags. My Togoan friend looked at me critically. It was difficult for him to sell this piece as it was near his heart. I asked him why he was asking so much for it, and his answer--'You cannot buy this. It was a special order from me. An old man in the capital city of Ghana made it. It's become a lost art. It's very complicated and strenuous to make. It is the only piece.' Well, I could tell the difference right off between factory-made waxed cotton--which I've often used and has it's beauty, and this waxed cotton which is beyond beauty. It's the same difference between store-bought butter and hand-churned butter, pasterized and handmade raw-milk cheese, Wonderbread and homemade bread from stone-ground wheat from the farm next door. It's that difference that only shows up in the flesh-and-blood.

The leather: this week I went to the city next door looking for leather. I don't like heavy bags, and I was looking for a leather that I would be able to make a sturdy, yet light-weight bag with. This lambskin leather in brick red was singing to me (yes, lambskin is expensive, especially napa, and I had to buy the whole skin, which made it even more so, but I thought I might get two bags out of it)...but it was unsuitably thin for making a large bag. I remedied that by attatching it to the linen body. (I have enough for a small bag I'll talk about next week). The result is delicious! It is maleable, soft, just the right weight, and of course sturdy. I wouldn't drag it through a mudpuddle or throw it in the washer--but who does that? (dry-clean or spot-clean)

My model: that's not my model, that's me. My model has a life, and I hope I can get enough light to have her model the bag over Christmas. It is going to be one of my more expensive bags, and that is why I thought I might write at length on just what went into the sourcing of the materials.

The actual designing, cutting, and making of the bag is something else--has taken me year's of hard-earned experience...and a lifetime of being 'me'...purist snob and all :-)