I am OBSESSED with sewing bags. Handbags, overnight bags, weekend bags.  I doodle them. Daydream them. Play with fabric. Am I actually sewing bags? Um, actually, not so much at this point.  But I have been reading books about it. I haunt the library and read and re-read everything I can get my hands on. I currently have "sew cute bags" as my dip into whenever I have a minute book. I also haunt sewing blogs with really cool bags. (Hi Kyle, love your bag! http://vacuumingthelawn.blogspot.com.au/)

Shown against red rug for max impact!

Well, I suppose that is a little unfair. I made this bag a few weeks ago to test some ideas I had on the subject of bag construction and internal pocketing.

internal pocket - only one though and more would be useful

 But it's not a colour I can easily work into a late winter work wardrobe for a mildly professional life  - and also I have this piece of leather which would. Oh how it would (And the whole thing was not my fault m'lud, as I was provoked.  I came out of the Fabric Store in Surry Hills to find that someone, naming no names, ..hmmprtner!.., had locked the keys in the car.  So I turned on my heel and went and bought the leather I had been petting.)
And I am still petting it. But leather is for bags not patting, and so I have to screw my courage to the sticking point and cut into it at some point and soon.

But life's great cycle is all about creative destruction before construction, right? * Which is why I chopped up this other leather handbag.

The victim came from a well known brand, Marina Galanti, and had a pigskin lining

(quality!) and nice looking fittings (quality!) I bought this bag for a not derisory sum, by my standards and would have expected it to be good for a long time. Such was not to be.  After some use, the handles started splitting and a split in the lining.  It was too late to return but not long enough to let me be comfortable chucking it (I know!).  So I put it away for occasional use.And then over time the leather itself developed what I can only describe as severe eczema, as the surface started peeling off in little flakes.  Revealing the fabric underneath.  Quality! They must have put too much solvent in the leather paste that day.

Filth! Cardboard!

But the square ring links were nice and the zipper might be useful.  So I hacked it up. And
I learnt many useful things during this slightly ghoulish process. The commitment to quality shown in the materials extended to the inside, with cardboard being the medium of choice for interfacing. I learnt that there is a good reason for feeling a little squeamish about sticking your hand into the lining of a bag, should it split and let your lipliner through - filthy is the only word.

I learnt that contact cement is apparently quite a good and convenient method for tacking a zip to the cardboard and leatherfabric, though it does make it unfit for harvesting.

But I ended, sadder and wiser, with four rather nice gun-metal square rings.

So we will call that a win.