Day Four – Canvas Bag

This is a project I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I bought a pack of 3 small canvas bags and I wanted to customize them, similarly to the shoes I did last year.

I love stripes, that’s a given, so for my first bag I wanted a simple pattern of fat horizontal stripes. I wanted the image area to be pretty loose, look handmade, and PENCIL marks make up the pattern. My hopes are that, like my shoes, people have to look again because they are surprised how much like pencil it looks…only to be informed that it is indeed pencil. I was so pleased with my shoes because the techniques I used resulted in a very permanent mark, and the pencil never smeared or wore away and still look great to this day, just more worn in.

I love how the finished bag looks. It was one of those things where I had the vision, but while I worked on it I kept changing my mind, “I’ll post in my etsy shop.” then a few minutes later “No, I love it too much, and it’s SO ME. I’m gonna keep it for myself.” and lastly “I shouldn’t be selfish, I should give it as a gift to so-and-so.” I prewashed it before doing this, but I think I will wash it one more time before deciding, just in case it doesn’t like going through the washer.”

I apologize for the pictures and colors being kind of wonky, but this bag took me over 3 hours and I began it after work, which left me no daylight once I was complete.