What better way to work through some new bag ideas than to make bags for friends and family. Awesome holiday gifts? Check!

In our standard seatbelt messenger bag, the strap runs completely around the bag and forms the sides of the bag. Most of our bags have a single interior zippered pocket.

I wanted to see what would happen if I beefed up the design, so I made the bag deeper and added pockets to the inside and outside.

The experiment turned out pretty well and there is a good chance the new version will turn up in the shop in a few months.

Will’s bag

Will likes a big bag. He uses his bag to haul around large amounts of library books, and random stuff he needs throughout the day. I made Will an M-9 (nine strips wide) in Fire aka black with oxblood and cranberry red stripes.  It’s actually a little too big of a bag for the  current .retool. sewing machines – there was much rolling and folding of the excess material. There may have also been some minor cursing at times.

The sides of the bag are two webbing strips wide (a little under 4 inches). I used a contrasting color for the side panels, red for Will’s bag. The shoulder strap wraps all the way around the bag and is stitched securely to the bottom of the bag.  I really like the black strip of webbing against the flashier red webbing. And no matter how many heavy books he throws in there, I’m pretty confident that strap isn’t going anywhere!

Under the flap, I added two pockets for carrying smaller items because, really, it’s hard to have too many pockets. I wanted the pockets to be easy to access, yet still secure so I went with a flap closure without an additional fastener. The outside of the pockets is 1000D Cordura® nylon. The pockets are fully lined in contrasting burgundy pack cloth. One of the pockets is just about square, the other is rectangular.

Onto the interior. The inside of the bag has a zippered pocket in burgundy pack cloth. It also has 2 slip pocket dividers attached to the back of the bag – perfect for papers or gym clothes. You can’t see it in the photos, but the interior bottom of the bag is the same red webbing as the side panels (it’s one long continuous strip). The red makes it easier to see what’s in the bottom of the bag. Plus, it looks sharp.

Zipper pocket.

Dividers at the back.

Jamye’s Bag

I made Jamye a smaller bag, an M-7, which is still large enough to hold a 13″ MacBook.  His bag is in our newest colorway, Venom. It’s black with foliage green and lime green.  The side panel is in the foliage green webbing. I used a grayish-green pack cloth for the pocket lining and interior pockets. It’s a pleasingly close match to the foliage green webbing. Here are some photos of his bag: