Here’s a sneak peek at the latest bag design. It’s a small shoulder/crossbody bag with an awesomely cool magnetic buckle (it slides sideways to open). The prototype is unlined with an exterior zippered pocket. I’m thinking of adding a partial lining and additional zippered pocket in the lining.
Custom orders are a great way to explore different options from new features to different color combinations. Here’s a look at some of the .retool. custom orders from the past few months. Enjoy!
| Lisa wanted a coin pocket wallet with an extra bill divider. |  |
| Irene liked our ID wallets and wanted an elastic strap added for some extra security |  |
| Jeremy wanted an industrial strength case for a Nexus 7 with gumdrop case. It has a pen pocket, too! |  |
| Bess was looking for gifts for her nieces. She asked for a pair of front zip tablet cases with handles. |  |
| Lynne is a repeat customer who wanted to update her fall accessories with a new checkbook holder. |  |
| Sam requested a couple of our coin pocket wallets with no velcro.No velcro? No problem! |  |
| Amanda turned to us for a new laptop case.We were happy to oblige. |  |
| Teresa had a special request for one of our Classic Mini Card Holders with Elastic – she wanted an extra card pocket on the outside. |  |
| Kristin wanted a laptop case for a Lenovo Yoga 2 11. |  |
| Catrina wanted a large bag. Really large. This one is about 14″ x 13″ x 5.5″ and has an interior zipper pocket. |  |
Over the past 6 weeks or so we’ve had several custom orders come through. They’ve included custom color/fabric requests as well as tweaks to our standard designs. Here’s a recap (click on the photos to make them bigger):
At the SF Bazaar Holiday Show, we had a customer who was interested in one of our seatbelt messenger bags. He needed a larger size than we had with us at the show and had one more special request – no velcro! So we made him an M-8 messenger bag with an inside pocket and no closure for the flap. The flap is heavy enough to stay closed on its own and we were pretty happy with how the bag turned out.
We brought a wide selection of our Slim Mini Credit Card Holders to the Renegade Holiday show. Not quite wide enough, as it turns out. We had a special request for a credit card wallet in orange and silver seatbelt webbing with dark gray nylon card pockets.
This one was a special request for my good friend and awesome art teacher, Pam. A year or so ago, I gave her a toiletry case with a print I knew she would love. It turns out that her daughter also loves it and keeps trying to run off with it. So Pam ordered a second one for her daughter’s birthday. This one features a flashy red interior and zipper.
We have a longtime customer who has an unfortunate habit of losing smartphones (and their cases). So far he’s dropped one in the bay and left another on a plane. Last time he ordered from us, he got two custom phone cases, just to have a backup. They are still going strong and now that his partner needs a smartphone for her work, she’s come to us as well. She’s a stagehand and a ranch hand so she needed a case that will stand up to some rough treatment. She decided to get a pair of cases – one to attach to her toolbelt and another that can clip to her pocket.
 A pair of phone cases |
 Smartphone case with loop for tool belt |
 Smartphone case with belt clip and grommet for extra security |
What better way to work through some new bag ideas than to make bags for friends and family. Awesome holiday gifts? Check!
Our standard M-7 messenger bag in Ocean
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 big 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.
Side view.
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!
Pockets!
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. |
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:
I recently finished up a new crop of M-7 messenger bags with tonal stripes. You can find the new bags in the Seat Belt Bags section of our Etsy shop here. To mark the occasion, we decided to do a special photo shoot. We got creative and went to a local park. Here are a few photos. Some of them are pretty cool; others are a bit weird. Enjoy!
.retool. 