Soddisfazione.

I have been carrying the first bag I completed and it is an incredible sense of accomplishment. I love seeing the look on people's faces when I tell them I made it. Some people simply do not believe me, which is a very good sign. Very soon, those of you in NY will get to see it in person.

These are the pattern pieces for Borsa #2. I am attached to my Filson field bag, so I am making a bag that resembles it, of course with some very important modifications.

I am delighted to say that there are some things I can do in my sleep now, like the interior zippered pockets that used to take me half a day to insert.

The construction of this bag is quite different from the others I've done. As always, we work from the interior out, so  I started with the lining. Pictured above is the lining of what will be the exterior pocket, attached to the leather which is part of the exterior of the bag.

Tracolla attached to the quadrante (main part)

These are the things you will never see unless you cut open a bag. This is reinforcement on the interior where the handles attach to the "quadrante of the bag. Once stitched down, I have to pull the threads tight, knot them, and glue "seta" (silk) on top to secure them in place. The "fodera" (lining) will hide this later. You can see there is a piece of "felpa" (the cream colored fabric) which gives the leather a little more "corpo," which means literally, body. Without it, the leather would be flimsy and would not give enough support to the bag.

My machine stitching has come a long way since the days when Acci used to eat my bag. The small cuts in the leather that you see on the upper right hand corner are the "segni" which are markings that will line up with the corresponding parts. I use them as a guide to connet the pieces when I am stitching them together.

As I mentioned before, the construction of this bag is different from the ones I have done. In the earlier models, I completed the entire lining, followed by the exterior, and then would stitch the two separate components together to make one complete form. In this bag the pieces of the lining correspond directly with the leather pieces of the exterior, and I attached them to their corresponding parts. The lining overlaps with the adjacent lining pieces, and each leather piece "sandwiches" on top of the next, so I can stitch them down and have a finished seam. If you look at the photo you can see that I am constructing the exterior in almost a ring form, so I can then attach the quadrante to both sides. This will all make much more sense when you see the next series of photos, I promise!

My days are winding down here, and I will be going home next week with my handmade creations in tow. I will continue to post from there, as there are many weekend adventures I have not shared with you. There will be at least one more post before I am on my way...

Quasi finita...

Quasi finita... almost done. I do love my creation, but I am getting sick of looking at this bag. It happens to all of us. We work on something for such a long time, that by the time we finish it we are just over it and onto the next. My strategy is to set it aside and put it out of sight for a few days. Then, when I look at it again, I have a hard time believing that I made it.

I hesitated in posting these because it's not quite there just yet. Just when I thought I was finished, I decided the straps are still not long enough. Of course this genius idea requires 4 additional "gimelli" which I did not have. Fortunately one of my classmates was venturing out to Scandicci to buy other materials so she picked them up for me, otherwise, it would have been a half day's adventure to get these four tiny little metal pieces. It is so unlike me to not buy several extra components of something I might need, but one of the things I have started to practice is the art of conservation. This is second nature to most Italians. They use and re-use. In school, we use every single inch of leather. Nothing goes to waste, and we find a use for everything. They do not buy in bulk and they do not over-buy anything. This holds true for materials, clothing, food. They buy what they need, and I too (if you can believe it!) have made this my new habit.

Unless I decide to make additional laborious changes this bag will soon be complete. I decided to move onto the next project, and will complete my tracolla in my downtime. 

In the next few days I hope to update you on some of the things I've been doing during my free time, including several trips to the seaside as well as the most incredible Dave Matthews concert I have seen to date. I will be in NY August 1-September 2. And then I shall return...

The passantini make the bag.

For the record, I absolutely love hand sewing. As you saw in a previous post, I had to puncture the leather before attaching this piece to the bag in order to create the holes through which the hand needle will pass. Then, once glued down, I had to puncture the holes again so I could create a "path" through all of the layers of the leather. Each hand stitched component is sewn with double needles: one passing through from the top, the other from the bottom. When they pass each other they create the loop which becomes the stitches that hold it in place. The two pieces that cover the zipper (one shown above) have too much material to pass through the machine. I like it because you have a lot more control over the stitches. Sorry, Acci, I still love you, but I love my hand sewing needles more.

This photograph is entitled "what to do versus what not to do," featuring from left to right: what not to do, and what to do. I was in what I believed to be the final stage of my bag, working on the "maniglie," handles. I was so anxious to finish that I cut these pretty quickly, and while to the untrained eye they may look nearly perfect, they were ever so slightly off. I did not put  enough glue down so I sliced into the salpa in a few locations on the handles. I could have covered up the blemishes when I painted the edges, but I could not let the last component of the bag I have been working on for two months be anything less than perfect. The two replacement "maniglie" on the right (what to do) represent one entire day's worth of work.

Yesterday my maestro turned to me and said, "Amanda, you are going to finish your bag tomorrow morning. I nearly screamed in excitement, as I have been working on this bag for what feels like forever. Then he continues.. "Oh wait.. the passantini."

Passantini are the small rings that hold something like a belt down when you buckle it. These are the details that make or break a bag. You can easily tell the quality and workmanship of anything just by looking at the small details such as these.  My bag features twelve. These pieces are tiny, but take a very long time to make. See the photo above? That was my day today. Six long hours and 12 passantini later... I am nearly done.

Unless I have to put more passantini on my bag (when Mao mentioned it I almost hit him) I should be finished with my very first bag tomorrow morning. Right now I am finalizing the placement of the holes on the incredible adjustable maniglie. And then... I will move right onto the next...