A Bag for Book/s

A Bag for Book/s

It was my bother birthday, the one who at times reminds me of “The Swedish Chef” from The Muppets Show.  A whole lot of fun in the kitchen and a little crazy in the best sense.  Last year I made him an apron and I don’t want to pigeon hole him. He is not just a great cook.  So it left me wondering what I can make for him that is really useful.  My mind kept circling around. What is something that I can make that he might actually be able to make his life a better???? I was thinking about the different aspects of his life that I know about and for a while I had nothing.  It was like my mind was saying “uuuuhhhh I don’t know.” with that single phrase on a loop.  

Finally I thought about how much he cares about books, he carries almost everywhere.   It’s not unusual to see him with a book tucked under his arm when he is walking somewhere.  Sometimes at family gatherings (which are not quiet) he is sitting in a chair reading until he decides he wants to engage in conversation.  He is not being anti-social or sticking his nose in the air because he doesn’t want to talk with such underdeveloped minds, no, that’s not it, it’s just a good book.  My brother craves something good to read like pregnant woman crave food.  Both get slightly cranky if they don’t get what they want after a whileJ

When my mind started circling around how much he loves to read. I started thinking about his attitude about the care of book.  I have found in talking to anyone who likes to read a lot there are very different ideas about what shows that a book is well loved.  Some people think it’s a sin to doggy ear a page, others use toilet paper as a book mark (you can guess why that would happen); still others don’t even want the spines to look cracked.  I even know some people who buy two copies of the same book; one in paperback for lots of reading and one hardback to sit on the shelf and look pretty as they slowly complete their collection.  I am sure most people who love to read have their quirks.

One trait that I think most people have in common is that they would cry in alarm if their book got wet.  The letters might run, the pages might stick, or if you tried to still read the pages might fall to shreds.  Then there is the worst nightmare of all, I am not done with the story, aaaaahhhhh!!!(I will include what I do when this happens to me at the bottom)

So I was picturing my brother walking around with his book tucked under his arm and it started to rain.  Now if it was a paperback book this might be mostly protected under his arm.  However, if this was a book that he was waiting a long time for then he might buy it in hardback because he was not going to wait any longer to find out what happen.  Hardbacks do not conveniently fit under the shelter of your arm.  I started to picture this bothering my brother and there was the problem maybe I could solve.

When designing I tried to think about the material, design, and size above all.

Material-To really help in wet weather the “book” bag would need to be as waterproof as I could make it.  All my initial thoughts on fabrics were plastic or vinyl and those fabric are way to girly for this brother.  I didn’t want him to have to decide between protecting his book and looking like a man with a purse.  So I decided on leather.  However I placed the most water resistant side right around the book, so that it would have to really saturate his bag before it got to his book

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   Design-It would need to be simple with clean lines as I think he only likes crazy in the button up shirts he wears and his cooking.  Again, I didn’t want it to feel like a purse by having a lot of fancy embellishments.  Although I did allow myself the luxury of using a book binding stitch to sew it together with as a nod to his interest in books

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Size-Lastly it would need to not be too large, if it was too large or a pain to carry around then he definitely would not use it.   So took what I think is his favorite book series and used that as a template for scale. I made it just large enough to hold one of these books.  I also made the straps so that it could hang on a hook when not in use so it would not be on the ground but could adjust to go around his shoulders like a back pack if he chose.

 

In the end I am not sure if it solved the problem that I was envisioning, if it really works for him.  I hope so, if not “back to the old drawing board” Wylie Coyote Super Genius

When I book I am reading gets wet I carefully put a pieces of wax paper in between each sheet of paper until all of the wet sections air dries.  Next I pull out all the wax paper. Then I take a sheet of paper and place it on top of the wrinkled paper. Starting at the farthest in the story and I gently iron on a low setting the first page gently pressing and flattening out the paper as much as possible.  I repeat this until all the pages that have had water damage have been ironed. Then I place a very heavy book or a lot of heavy book on top of the whole closed book.  I leave the book like this for at least three days.  The book is more flat than it was when it was after it first dried out.  However it is not the same as a non water damaged book but the book can reasonably be read now.