About the 26/01 Series, mini tote bag

At that time, I was still living on Stawowa, near the railway station. There were several second-hand stores not far from me. My two favourites were one near the station and another, much bigger one, near Renoma in Wrocław. In fact, this is where I live — in Wrocław.
Second-hand stores have discounts, and each one has its own “lowest-price” day. That’s when you pay a fixed amount per item instead of paying by the kilogram. I tried to go specifically on those days because jeans could really push the price up for me. At the bigger second-hand store near Renoma, the lowest-price day was Thursday, and after work I always tried to get there at least two hours before closing, hoping to catch some good jeans — and most importantly, jeans that weren’t ripped or dirty. And no stretch, although sometimes, very, very rarely, I might take it if it isn’t too stretchy and I like the colour.

In general, even though I go looking for jeans, I don’t collect only denim. That time I went not even on Thursday, but on Wednesday, because there was a little more choice than on the lowest-price day, and so on. But that day I managed to find only one pair of jeans. I was disappointed, sighed, and walked to the back of the store, where they had towels, curtains, bedding. Some other things too. Every now and then I managed to find some perfectly decent pieces of fabric there, leftovers. More or less cut up, but still absolutely good enough for bags. So I went there with that one pair of jeans, thinking that today’s catch wasn’t looking too impressive. I went looking for a shark and caught a crucian carp.
I got there and started looking. I found one piece of bedding. Then another. I liked the patterns — simple ones. “They’ll work for bags,” I thought. Then I spotted a heavier fabric and picked it up. I turned it around in my hands. It was some kind of cover for a sofa cushion. I looked at the label. IKEA. “Cool,” I thought. “I need to take this,” I decided. And I did.
My room on Stawowa was small. One table was covered with my still unfinished novel, a plasma TV and a laptop. That was my literature table, not my craft table. I hardly ever sewed there. I couldn’t even properly spread fabric out on the floor. My mum often does exactly that at home — she draws and cuts directly on the floor.

But soon I moved into a bigger room in another picturesque part of the city and started sewing more actively. In fact, I created my first series in that very room. There was not only the literature table, but also a separate sewing table, which an old friend gave me when he was replacing the furniture in his office. By the way, that table is from IKEA too.
So. From those covers — there were three of them — I made 8 mini tote bags, little bags with lining and two loops for carabiners. To be honest, at first those were supposed to be loops for a cord — a backpack-style strap. But when the bag is heavy, those loops pull the side of the bag inside out and the whole shape loses its look. A shame. I decided not to add the cord and backpack option and figured that two loops for carabiners weren’t such a bad idea either. And the bag would have to be carried by hand. Not for parties, but perfect for a lunchbox. Cute, stylish, individual. Just imagine how much more stylish a city could become if people started carrying little bags like these. Beautiful.
This was my first series, which I sewed over almost two weeks, but in three separate stretches. In between, I went to work, looked for a new job, ran to a wholesale supplier of hardware and chose details, threads and metal elements for the next bag. Between those sessions I also made test bags — four of them in total — and reworked the pattern three times. By hand. On paper, like back in the day. Old-school, without laptops or software. Hand-drawn.

Then I tested the construction process and the sequence of operations involved in making the piece. One mistake after another. I remembered how things are sewn in factories, where I had managed both to do an internship and to work for half a year in the cutting room. I remembered how my mum sews, what they taught us at vocational school and, eventually, the series came out whole and intact. Seven out of eight were uploaded to the website, while one was kept for ourselves. I test-washed two of the eight in the washing machine and realised that they shouldn’t be machine-washed, because the washing machine damages the twill — the material used for the IKEA covers — and that matters a lot. Of course, it becomes very soft, but the structure of the weave loses some of its strength, and there is a chance the bag won’t serve you for as long as I myself expect it to.
Overall, these are small bags made for long-term use. They have character and they will live on — no longer as sofa covers, but as **tote bags**. And that is exactly what "ivashko, upcycling studio" does — gives things a second life so they can serve for longer than you might have expected. Because why not?

That’s more or less the story. To be continued.