The Story of The Big Oarlock

The seed for this idea started to grow when my children were little. Daily life with small babies is intense and I disliked the chaos of my diaper bag. I sewed a bag that was wider and shorter to avoid the explosion that happened when I was looking for something in the bottom. Then I sewed two inserts that would divide the stack of cloth diapers from the spare clothes, sippy cups, toys, etc. I put handles on these inserts, figuring if it didn't work, you could always take the little bag out and use it for organizing something else in the baby's room.


A year or so later, my older son came to me excitedly asking if we could make a bag together. It was half an hour before bedtime and I ran through all the excuses in my head about why there wasn't enough time and he wasn't old enough to operate my industrial machine, and the hand crank one wasn't set up right now, and I really wanted to get the dishes done etc, etc. But luckily I said yes. He told me with his hands about how big he wanted it, he chose some colours and we hunted through my scrap pile. I sat him on my lap and we sewed up this little bag. It turned out almost exactly the same size as the inserts I had made for the diaper bag.  

 

He very proudly look his lunch to school in it the following day.

 

The next month my son and I were back in my sewing studio trying to think of something to make for his little brother's birthday. We knew his favourite colour was green, but the fun bright green was a thinner canvas, so we added a piece of white canvas in the inside to make it stand up on its own. The idea was for him to have a small manageable bag to gather toys in for a car ride. We used it as a wrapping present bag for the wooden boat that he made for his little brother as well.

The bright cheery look of this new little green bag got me thinking about the other fun canvas colours I had just ordered. I tucked the idea in the back of my head to sew up a bunch of them in the spring for an Easter Sale. March came along and I did just that, offering a selection of Pink, Purple, Turquoise, Green & Orange. I had fun creating this promotional photo, which launched a very successful sale.


One of my customers is a very talented Easter Bunny and used the bags as a base to create a fun Easter Surprise for her two little ones.


And finally, here are the two original bags in use during our loooong road trip for Easter.



Links to these bags on our website:
The Big Oarlock and The Baby Oarlock.
The Cabin II and The Catboat (large) are both the same size, and function well as a diaper bag, however the Cabin has more pockets.

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