Happy birthday, brother!

Well, its been almost a month since my youngest brother had his birthday, but he finally received his present today!  Ironically, so did my niece, Sarah, which maybe not so ironically because they were both shipped to the same state from the same state on the same day.  But I got a call from both of them within the hour this morning saying they received their extremely belated birthday gifts, so I'm assuming at least the USPS is slightly consistent with their shipping.

Anyways, that aside, I can finally show you my brother's bag!!!

Well, here's his card first.  I made it with some bag scraps.  I would like to think its appropriately manly.

My brother asked me for a work bag, like this one.  The special thing about the bailey bag (if you look at the video, which I did, many times over) is you can secure the bag to your back with a second strap, so you should have a secure bicycle bag.  So, that was my inspiration.

My second inspiration was this bag, which was an old college messenger bag, and which I deconstructed for all the buckles & straps.  Partly because I'm cheap, and partly because the bag was ripped up inside and no longer usable.  But the buckles were...

It was also cool because I used some of the gray vinyl from it in my brother's bag. 

My last inspiration was a diaper bag I made for my sister's birthday, and which somehow I totally forgot to take pictures of.  However, to give credit where credit is due, here is the link for the tutorial.  The diaper bag gave me the idea of how to construct square bags easily without using box-corners.  If that makes sense.  I also created Katie's purse using that method.

Anyways, so there were my inspirations.  Everything else is totally my idea.  All the dimensions, placement of pockets etc, blah blah.  It was exciting because this is the first thing I made from MY original drafts (which I had to actually sketch out), and it actually turned out how it was supposed to!  I didn't take any pictures of the creative process along the way, mainly because I made it up as I went along. 

Anyways, let me introduce Andre's biking bag....!!!....

The front brown (which extends halfway down the back) is vinyl (I'm hoping it will be at least slightly waterproof), the gray stripe is from my old bag, and there is a stripe of black leather at the bottom to keep things interesting.

The front flap secures to the bag by buckles:

This is the front of the bag when you open the flap:

I dont have an unblurry picture, sorry.  Anyways, the front pockets are from left to right:  a velcro pocket with a fold-over thingee, a regular pocket, and a zipper pocket.

Also, the fabric is a wool-blend I think, brown and tan houndstooth that I got in the Joann clearance remnant section awhile ago. 

The one side has an elastic pocket:

And the other one has the adjustable portion for the main strap:

This is the gray thing at the top...what I like to call both "problem solving" and "ways to keep my stuff original":

The inside top secures with another buckle:

It can also hold a tremendous amount of things.  I stopped adding books to it after this, even though there was more room, because it was almost too heavy for me to swing onto my shoulder:

The inside pockets (I tried to keep it simple):

Like the hippie fabric?? :)

And last but not least, the back showing the extra straps.  You'll have to use your imagination (or watch the video) to see how they work:

Anyways...whew.  That was fun to share.  It was fun to make too.  Happy belated birthday, Andre'!!!

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.  ~Confucius