Super bag for women at work (All-in-one: shoulder bag, messenger bag, backpack)

Completion date: June 13, 2019

Shoulder bag (weight: 0.7kg)

Messenger bag

Knapsack (weight: 0.85kg)

I had this idea of making a super bag for office ladies. For a long time, I was imagining a universal adaptor to convert tote bag to a backpack. (What I really want to say is, there could be a market out there for women who carries laptop everyday. Like me, as a salesperson.  We go to places, and work outside. )

That is too far away from me. 

So, I finally was looking to transform my bag into a backpack instead.  I bumped into a bag that was already designed for 2-way wearing (long shoulder bag, short shoulder/hand bag).  I bought it.  I did a number of transformations so they are in sections below. The transformation took me around 1 month's time. 

Original bag:

Section 1: Umbrella slot

1. Take a band and wrap it loosely around the umbrella. It should be big enough to allow the umbrella to be picked up easily and small enough to catch umbrella from sliding down out the loop. Add another 1.5 inch and cut there. 

2. Sew the ends together to form a loop.

3. Flip the linen inside out.

4. Sew the loop to the side.

Section 2. Make it into a bag to be carried on my back

1. Grab the 2 D-ring. Cut a paper model to fit the D-ring to the bottom corners. The bottom corners would have to be far apart for the width of my hip. 

2. Cut out leather stripe from paper model. Put a D-Ring through. 

3. Put colorless edge dye and let dry.

4. Put black dye on the edge. (My black dye expired, the dye never dries)

5. Glue and fold the leather together.

6. Mark a line and Punch holes through the folded stripe.

7. Glue the folded stripe to the bag bottom corners

8. As the inner bag linen is intact, I am sewing the leather, linen and bag material altogether. Smooth out the linen flat and clip the leather, bag, and linen altogether.

9. Take a pointy device, point it through the hole to be sewed, and hammer it down. Remember to put a block standing up in the bag to support the hammer action.

10. Sew through. Repeat previous step for each hole. It's quite challenging to sew this part as linen is in the dark (inside the bag).

11. To finish, tie two knots. I put glue between the folded stripes, and thread through about 1.5cm end in between the folded stripes.

12. Bought the shoulder straps from Taobao.  Install them.

Section 3: Fix the shape of bag. There are 2 rings by the ends of the zipper sticking out. This couldn't look natural if the bag is to carried on the back.  The idea is to have the rings down by the bag's side.  

1. Pull down a side ring and use a clip to mark the area where the ring falls.

2. Take out the clip, pinch the bag material only (exclude the linen) and make a 2.5mm hole punch.  The result is 2 holes.

3. Put 5mm (inner diameter) eyelet and install for the holes. The result is 2 holes sandwiched in one eyelet.

4. Secure the eyelet from tearing apart (happened on me!) by sewing an extra line  of defense. Punch holes here and sew.

5. Use a binder ring to loop the eyelet hole and bag's side ring together. (I later used a clip to achieve the same effect. It's heavier, but golden color clip blends better)

Section 4: Fix a mistake. I made the mistake in section 3 by making a 5mm hole punch instead of 2.5mm. The rationale behind is that with soft and thin material they tend to be stretchy, making the hole bigger than it is. I didn't have 7mm eyelet in gold color, so the holes were there for a long time. I thought of a camouflage to end this non-sense. In my toolbox, I kept these broken clips with the chains still intact.

1. Take the chains off with a piler and put together to 10cm long. 

2. Put the chain though and close the chain into a loop with a piler.

Section 5: Install a retractable card holder. I had this idea in an attempt to camouflage the mistake in section 4. Later on, I discarded the idea because there was too much hard work on sewing with the linen, and it would be too cluttered-looking on the bag. Since the card holder would be hanging outside of bag, I decided to make a new card holder that bears no company logo and no window like my old badge did. In addition, my octopus card would be attachable and detachable to this retractable device. It solves all my access/payment card problems altogether. 

1. Copy the exact shape of my name badge to leather. 
2. Cut the leather out. 
3. Trace the leather onto another piece of leather. 
4. Cut the leather. Now the card holder badge leather are ready. 
5. Mark the strap hole and cut out.

6. I cut another piece of small leather to form a loop at the bottom of the badge.  (I designated for this loop to clip to the bag bottom ring, as I wasn't sure if the card holder would be swaying too much while walking. It didn't happen though. So, this loop could append other things in the future.)

7. Glue the parts together.

8. Mark a line for hole punch. Punch holes.

9. Sew them together.

10. Put colorless edge dye, let it dries.

11. Put pink edge dye, let it dries.

12. At this point, the card badge doesn't have any strap. Take the existing strap, cut off the part with rivet.

13. Burn the cut, to prevent strap from fraying.

14. Poke a hole in the strap.

15. Install 633 type button.  By this point the company strap is by itself and only needs to be attached to badge when necessary. The rest of the time the badge is attached to my bag.

16. There is an original tag that came with the bag. Take the hanging strap, not the tag. Cut it short, but long enough to allow a tail.

17. There is already one slit there. Install the retractable device on the slit.  Make another slit 1cm below it. It is to allow threading through of the tail of the strap

18. Thread the tail from bottom up through the top slit and down the slit below it.

19. Cut the tail a nice look.

Note

This bag ended its service in 2021 September.   Reason: PU material is chapped.