The Making of Tiflis

The Making of Tiflis

Hi there, in this article I would like to tell you the story of how I created Tiflis backpack. Most of the times I just make something and everything goes as expected and that is pretty boring. This project was my first one after a long year of not being able to work and there were a few things that went wrong :) 

It's been a while since I wanted to create a bigger version of Puppy and thought its name would be Doggo, which sounds logical, but then I decided I would honor the beautiful city I moved to. Tbilisi was called Tiflis before 1936 and I think this sounds great. 

It was a bit scary to start such a big project after a long break but sometimes I don't choose what I create, it chooses me and I gotta obey :)

I made a sketch: 



Then I drafted everything and turned out I did not like the pockets. The zippers were too close to the body and it wasn't really comfortable to access. 





I ripped them apart and decided I'd try something else.
Yes, I had to stitch zippers again because the length of the frames was slightly different. 
I believe you would guess why I did not like the second version either :) 





I looked at it and said "That is fucking weird" and ripped them apart again. 
The third and the final version of the pockets was using the same zipper frame length as the previous so I saved myself some pain and did not have to stitch those zippers into the frames for the third time. 



On I went, and assembled the whole thing. As I don't have (yet) my hot stamping press (it's still on its way along with the rest of my workshop and the Skinny Bitch) I decided I would try wet stamping my logo on the veg tan. Which was a bad idea because I do not usually do this type of thing and everything that could possibly go wrong, did go wrong. 
After fighting with deformations was over, I stitched it on and realized I did not like the color and I didn't have any dyes (and did not want to experiment with that as I do not normally dye anything either).




So, I printed the new flap and started sticking it to the piece of expensive heavy Italian waxed veg tan (awesome stuff by the way, it is Missouri from La Perla Azzurra in 3.5 mm weight) when I decided to put it on and see if everything is good and comfortable. 
Which was a great idea - the strap attachment openings on top of the backpack were horizontal and when the backpack was worn on both shoulders it caused a slight deformation of the flap and it would become concave - all because the straps would want to spread further apart. You can notice that on this picture:

 
Not only I had to make a new flap, I also had to make the whole back panel to change the angle of those openings. 

 So, I ripped apart everything but pockets :) Also I found out that horizontal pocket zipper on the back was not very convenient and made it vertical which is much handier in use. 

In total, I stitched 6 zippers while making this design. 3 of them went to scraps (not really, because the 2 from the pockets can be used in some other project sometime). 

From start to finish this project took almost 2 weeks, which is a lot comparing to all my other projects (usually they take from 1-2 days to a week max). It does require a lot of stitching, but I've rarely had so many fails in one bag - however, it still was fun to create. I did manage to finish it right before my birthday so it became a birthday present to myself.

Oh and also, do not buy cheap cutting mats! :) 



  

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