Mai Bag x House and Leisure

In February last year, to honour the 30 year anniversary of their launch, House & Leisure asked several artists, designers and makers to choose and reinterpret a magazine cover from their 30-year archive.

I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try and make a patchwork bag using an image as my starting point. I’d never tried working this way and really enjoyed the process - it was a fun challenge. I chose the November 2013 cover because the colour palette felt quite unique and different to what I’m normally drawn to, and I liked the strong lines of the pool, house and mountains in the distance - I thought these would translate nicely into bigger shapes in the patchwork.

H&L didn’t end up using my bag, so now I thought I’d offer it up to you ;)

The tote features an inside pocket that’s big enough to hold your phone and other small trinkets, a small outside pocket (good for sunglasses), as well as a little carabiner hook to hang your keys, ties to keep your bag from falling open, and padded straps (quilted with 4 layers of cotton canvas) to make it comfier to carry. 

This one is made from fabric scraps in natural, red, sky blue and grey-blue linen, yellow hemp, and white and brown thicker cotton canvas. The lining is a light blue linen and the ties and carabiner hook are a red linen.