Wofchuck's Cattail Cojongo Case

Our friend Mike Wofchuck is a professional percussionist. He brought us a Cojongo (wooden box drum) and asked us to make a traveling case for it. This bag is made from a whole bunch of different materials. 
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Lid in progress - brown hemp from German Army duffel bag, yellow fire hose, scrap leather, grommets in lid/handle are from duffel bag.

 

 

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 Upholstery scrap, fire hose, old cordura from camo duck hunting bag.

 

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 Hemp base, army surplus brass D-ring padded with scrap leather to keep lid clips from gouging drum. Fire hose cattails, and Japanese crane motif inkjet printed on raw canvas. 

 


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 Cattails - Old waxed cotton tarp, fire hose, scrap leather, and ripstop poly/cotton from old cargo pants/uniform at my last job.

 


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 Binding the lid with army surplus webbing.

 


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 Finished product - front view.

 


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 Lid and side - olive strip on the right made from waxed cotton tarps that were the roof of Lauren Kennedy's family cabin for several decades.

 

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 Front view. 


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 My aunt runs a business in Kansas City 'Asiatica' that repurposes vintage Japanese textiles. The crane is from a digital photo that I took of one of her old fabrics. We inkjet printed it onto some raw canvas and then steamed it to fix the dye.

 


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 Lid clip and cattail detail

 


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 Lid detail

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Handle is scrap leather wrapped around hemp rope that used to tie the German Army duffel bag shut (thru these same grommets).

 

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Lining is recycled Chico Bags donated by Mr. Andy Keller himself, thanks, Andy!

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Satisfied customer

 

 

Filed under  //   fabric   fire hose bags   leather   luggage   printing   the shop  
Posted January 22, 2012
 

World-traveler messenger bag

My buddy Andrew left a message that there was a big old classroom map laying in his alley.  Made of about heavy rubber and about 5'x8' - it is big enough to make a whole series.
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This first one is a Christmas present for my pops - who is half Norskie, and half Svede.  Fire hose, old leather belt, and map, with inside file-folder pocket from a salvaged carryon bag.  Let us know if you want a bag made with a particular geography.  Get your continent before it is gone!

 


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Filed under  //   fire hose bags   luggage  
Posted December 23, 2010
 

Collage, Zigzag, and Details

Collage and zigzag are two unifying themes for our holiday work this year.  Here are some works in progress - including a sneak peek at Erika's new Rockabilly Luggage sets.

  

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Filed under  //   field bags   fire hose bags   luggage   the shop  
Posted November 14, 2010
 

Freewheelin' it/Pablo's overnight bag

Zeke and I recently went on a Wheeled Migration bike tour along the California coast between Montara and Santa Cruz. We had incredible weather and visited organic farms along the way. This is a pic of our bike parking and campground at Pie Ranch, an organic farm that grows ingredients for pies. We had a demo in the morning of how they stone grind their wheat fresh for the pies they make with school children. And then we ate it with pancakes. Yum.
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 We took our rug rat, Ezra, on the back of Zeke's bike; the little guy loved it. 

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Ezra was so excited by the new sights, I had to be very creative to get him to eat his meals.

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 Our last night we camped at Freewheelin' Farm in Santa Cruz. Three farmers run a small farm which delivers it's CSA shares by bicycle. Zeke and I were excited to see they use an attractive blue irrigation hose. When Zeke asked one of the partners, Amy Courtney, if they had any damaged hose, she brought us to a pile of hose bound for the dumpster. Oh lucky day!


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Here's Amy on the left, and Lisa, staff of Wheeled Migration, on the right. You can see the farm in the background. Wow, they are right on the ocean and the air was so alive.  

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Here's a shot of the farmers at work. 


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When we got home, I laid out the hose on the lawn and washed it with a hose. 

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This new blue hose felt to me like the perfect weight to make another suitcase. I've been wanting to try a bag big enough to be suitable for a long weekend, for someone that packs a lot of stuff. Here's the "Pablo" overnight bag in progress, named after our friend Pablo, who needs to take several pairs of shoes on every trip.

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And here's the finished bag. Freewheelin' hose makes up the sides, along with a fire hose strip (in light blue). Army surplus webbing makes up the handles and strap, and the middle of the bag is a soft, supple piece of scrap leather. Salvaged zippers finish it off. It measures 22" long, 14" wide and 14" tall. It's quite a bit bigger than anything I've made so far, and I think with an adjustment here or there, we've got a great new bag to add to our line. Stay tuned for matching pairs of large and small overnight bags.

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Filed under  //   fire hose bags   luggage  
Posted October 24, 2010
 

Luggage!

I have been wanting to start making luggage for awhile now - finally felt like I was ready to take on a larger bag.  During a trip to Portland two weeks ago I went into Oregon Outdoors, and ogled all of their gorgeous Filson bags, thought "we can do that".  I found a basic duffel bag at a thrift store a few days ago, and thought that it would be a good shape to copy.  I took it apart, made a pattern, and then put it back together, piecing over the existing panels with fire hose.

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Here is the finished product, I am stoked on it!   

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Getting the ends sewn in was a chore - I started off using heavier rubberized hose like I have been using for the messenger bag sides, but with overlapping layers of hose on the sides and 4 layers of trim, the machine was trying to push 5/8", and choking, breaking needles, looping like crazy on the bottom of the fabric.  I was up late Googling 'consew 206rb looping', cleaning the machine (filthy), no dice.  Once in bed, I realized that I just needed to use thinner material on the ends.

 

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The hardest part was getting the top piece to fit properly, and figuring out the order to sew it in.  Ideally the top and ends start as one piece that you sew into the sides, but I decided to sew the bag with seams out, and wasn't sure I trusted the pattern to work out perfectly.  I had to do some funky spelunking inside the dark almost-finished bag to do the seam between the ends and sides to finish it.  Top is from army surplus German duffel bag, with a new brass zipper from Oregon Leather (another multi-hour destination when we are in Portland).  Straps are nylon fire hose salvaged by Dan Borge at the Cal Lodge when they upgraded their fire protection system, and two other kinds of hose. 

 


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This is one of the first projects that we have used dyed hose on.  The blue is linen fire hose from the Cal Lodge that we dyed during an easter egg hunt party after all of the kids were done making tie-dyes.  

 

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 Swivel clip from the ReStore - they had a couple bags of brand new solid bronze hardware there last year, thanks boys!  Adjuster buckle and D-ring from thrift store belts.


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Luggage!  I am hooked.  How can we do rolly-bags?

 

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Strap detail.

Filed under  //   fire hose bags   luggage  
Posted May 12, 2010