All our bags are sewn on a domestic sewing machine. We use upholstery thread which makes them really strong.
There’s no fancy sewing room (we wish!), just a very cluttered dining room, and lots of boxes of jeans and fabric. And our cat Darcy, who loves to help. (We have another cat, Luna, but she doesn’t sew!)
We don’t use patterns for the bags; we look at what fabric we’ve got available, and go from there. Letting the creative process free flow.
A lot of the denim we use is given to us by our local charity shop; they put the jeans they cannot sell (dirty or too damaged) to one side for us. We then rummage through and pick out what we can use. We then wash the jeans before dismantling them for the bags. We don’t mind stains or damage because we just use the good parts.
Unfortunately, we can’t use all jeans. For example, jeggings and very stretchy jeans are no good for bags. We love the non stretchy thick denim. We particularly love Levi’s denim.
We LOVE thrifting so we do sometimes buy jeans specifically to make bags if they are really good. We also thrift all of our fabric for the lining of the bags. Sometimes this is sewing fabric, and sometimes it’s duvet covers or old shirts etc. Anything really as long as it’s colourful.
Mayhem Makers NZ 