Rad Bags

Yep, Tuesday 12/23 I’ll be at Fact & Fancy live & in person making custom canvas & leather pouches on the spot from my inexhaustible scrap collection! Pick your materials, and in just a few minutes you’ll be the proud owner of a versatile, super functional, durable zipper pouch. Custom pouches starting at $15? You crazy.

Fact & Fancy

75B Hoyt St. Between State & Atlantic in Brooklyn, NY

Tues December 23, 6-8pm

Just to keep you posted, here’s the juicy details.

opened on our last day in Indiana this summer

I’m a month into my Clinical Pastoral Education Unit, which began in September and ends in April. The class part is once a week and then I have ten clinical hours a week beyond that class time. It is mind blowing, consuming, super challenging, hard, sad, and a little thrilling. I have learned so much about myself and about how to be of service to people in crisis in just the last month, that I’m not sure how my brain and heart are going to hold everything that is yet to come. And belive me, there is more to learn than I could possibly have imagined.

Still figuring out what might be next. To be a board certified chaplain will require four units like the one I’m taking now, plus three years of theological school. Not to mention all the personal work and social networking that seems to also be important (like anything). But is being board certified the goal? Not sure.

one of a kind bag in stock!

I’ve decided to make CallieCo bags my sort of part time job. I’m spending about one day a week trying to sell some of the inventory I accumulated this summer to participate in the fairs and fleas. So you’ll see some one of a kind items pop up on Etsy, and you’ll see less of the custom work I’ve done in the past. I’m trying to keep the bag business simple and fun, so two new rules for me: no more custom work (except for loved ones, you know who you are), and no more selling at shows, fairs, or fleas. Yes, I am still selling things, but it is surprising how much easier it is when you take out the parts that make you cranky, and it is towards something you really care about.

grown with love

Our financial lives feel pretty bleak these days. I had some moments last week, some of those “this is an important moment and things will be different after this” kind of moments. But I’m strangely optimistic. I’m also working at my favorite yarn shop one day a week and last week the proprietor invited me to come build a yurt on her property if the poop really hits the fan. So I’m not too worried. We’ll grow tomatoes and dye yarn.

I’ll be back at the Brooklyn Flea this Sunday 6/8. Don’t miss the Flea this summer: it is so awesome. Come early or the line for the food will be one million people long. I’ll be sharing with Erica from Species by the Thousands and Reine.

Also you won’t want to miss this year’s Renegade Craft Fair in Williamsburg Brooklyn June 14 & 15. Incredible vendors from all over bring their handmade stuff to this fair – and so do I! I’ll be sharing a booth with Cal Patch from Hodgepodge Farm – look for us right smack in the middle.

I’ve received some wise advice: diversify my selling opportunities. So now you can buy rad bags online at my Etsy Shop, buy them direct from me at the Brooklyn Flea & at the Renegade Craft Fair and also at the brand new store called Fact & Fancy, here in beautiful Brooklyn! My friends Danielle & Christine have decided to go for it: they feature hand picked high quality handmade items including my rad bags & wallets! Go visit: Friday, Saturday & Monday 12-7 and Sunday 12-6 75 Hoyt St. between Atlantic & State.

I’ve been selling rad bags the last two Sundays at New York’s newest flea market with other sellers from Supermarket, the online independent design marketplace. The weather hasn’t been too cooperative, but it is still super fun.

Wow! I haven’t had too many opportunities to sell direct to the public my self but it’s great! It is fun to interact with folks and get feedback about the stuff I’ve been making direct from the people who want them. I’ve learned so much, and have so much more to learn about selling and retail. I’m looking forward to using all this new found info at the Renegade Craft Fair this June in Williamsburg Brooklyn.

The Flea itself is awesome. The people are really friendly and interesting/interested. The sellers are all over the place, there is really something for everyone. I saw people holding frames and mirrors, records, waffles, odd metal bits (a cross, a bug), clothes & jewels from $1 to $300, and odds and ends of every description; hand made, made in Bali, vintage, & junk. If you haven’t been yet, it is worth the trip!! Everyone selling there is an independent business person, people who would love and can really use your support.

I’ll be there this coming Sunday from 10-5 at the Esty booth, selling my bags and promoting Church of Craft meetings at the Etsy Labs, just a few blocks away. Come visit! We will be right next to the food tents at the back of the market.

I’ll be selling some Rad Bags 4/13 & 4/20 at the Supermarket booth at the Fort Greene Brooklyn Flea! This thing has gotten a lot of buzz and my fellow Supermarketers had a great time on opening day. I’ll also be there 4/27 at the Etsy booth selling my stuff and talking to folks about the Church of Craft meetings we have there once a month. I’ll be debuting my newest bag design! Photos soon, promise. Would love to see you and I think it will be really fun.

All this bag stuff started years ago when my friend Jane Dickson saved a few of her canvas scraps for me, because she knows I’m crafty & recycle-y. I tucked them away and some stray moment months later pulled them out and started thinking about them. Folded this way it’s like a bag side, folded this way it’s like a bag strap and if I cut and sew here then there’s a built in pocket. I pulled out a bit of upholstery vinyl for the bottom and decided I liked it so much that I should make another one! In just a few hours I had these two simple, comfortable, machine washable bags. They were somewhere between a high slung messenger bag, a tote, and a shoulder bag. And it was almost my friend Leslie Baum’s birthday! One of fashion’s early adopters, I suspected it would be right up her alley. It was! She proceeded to take it to yoga twice a week and and every trip she took for the next three years.

I used mine just as much if not more. I would often get stopped on the street and asked about my unusual bag and enjoyed cooing that I had made it my self thank you!

I would even have people suggest that I really should make and sell them. I dismissed these suggestions as idle flattery. And besides, everyone knows that handmade just doesn’t ever pay what it should for the time it takes to make, right?

It wasn’t until years later when I had finally let go of my last client (I used to do business management for artists and small creative businesses) that my thoughts turned back to Leslie’s bag. I was exhausted of making other people’s creative dreams come true, only to come home to wiped out to even turn on my sewing machine, let alone try to wrap my mind around making Art.

I needed to change my way of making money to something(s) that I really loved doing, and I didn’t want to work for anyone else any more. Why not just try it, try making and selling something you really love? I made five more bags in different sizes took photos of them and posted them to my new free Etsy Shop. Then I gave them to my friends for field testing. It took a few months, but I finally sold a bag on Etsy! Elated. Then I sold another!

Leslie finally requested a new bag in leather please, but otherwise exactly the same. Delighted, this was what I came up with:

If you could have it be however you wanted, how would that be? It is perhaps the hardest question I’ve ever asked myself, and this is not the first time. When I was young and impressionable my Grandfather sat me down very seriously and said “As an old man, this is the best piece of advice I can give you: avoid work at all costs.” He cackled at his own absurdity, but I, being impressionable, took his advice to heart. I mean come on, working is not usually fun. I recently decided that jobs (i.e. working for a company rather than yourself) are tools of the man. Looking through those job listings on the NY Times it dawned on me how much the whole concept of “job” is designed to make you feel like you need to work for someone else to make a living. Not true!!

Ok so we have that established: no jobs. What do we want? I’m using the royal we here because I have recently realized that I am trying to do at least five careers at one time these days. I’m designing and sewing my own usable objects and selling them. I co-founded and am the NY minister of the Church of Craft. I’m a landlord. I teach crochet. I perform wedding ceremonies. I design crochet stuff. Okay, that’s six. And I also have a great full incredible life that mostly I just want to live as much as I can! So this is the pickle. How do I make enough: a living that is comfortable; and still do all the things I want to do, am compelled to do, love to do, without having a job? It is an old saw amongst my folk, and it feels indulgent and even immature to think I can have it how I want it. But why not?