Sara's first car was this 1999 Mercury Cougar. It was beyond repair and when it came time to junk it she thought that a bag made from the seatbelts would be a great memento of her trusty old friend that had seen her through many long road trips and snow storms.
I've grown to know Sara through emails. She's been a loyal blog reader for some time and has published several on-line articles about HARVEYS so I thought this would be a great project to take on.
She carefully removed the seatbelt from her car and sent it to me in an old envelope saved from a keychain she had purchased from our website (good recycling Sara). Her request was for a Large Satchel. Here are a few pictures of it being built along side the other Tree-cycle bags.
The seatbelt was measured, cut and woven into the shell
Here's a shot of the inside of the bag. Notice the little plastic tabs that stop the seatbelt buckle from sliding down.
She didn't quite have enough seatbelt so we had to dig through our Tree-cycle supply and found a perfect match to use for the top and handles. Our Tree-cycle seatbelt is recycled remnants from the car manufacturers that comes to us in a mix of colors and quantities. Hence the mix of colors on all of our Tree-cycle bags.
She chose "Cami" for the lining (a mix of greens) with Tree-cycle labels. Tree-cycle bags normally come with Organic Hemp and Cotton lining that's hand screened with the Tree-cycle artwork.
For the hang tag we used this piece with the Ford, factory stitch pattern and label, then stitched the Tree-cycle label on the flip side.
Here's a picture of the finished bag (notice the cougar emblem on the bottom right corner that she removed along with the seatbelt). Then it was sent off to Quality control to get the final inspection along with the rest of the Tree-cycle large satchels.
Sara generously treated the HARVEYS crew to an ice cream party that we'll be having in a few days. Can't wait to see pics of Sara with her new/old bag.