The Perfect Little Travel Bag

I obsess about what to pack when I travel. Perhaps it is a reaction to being a traveling textile teacher who ALWAYS ends up with the maximum load of student supplies in my luggage, but when I have the chance I travel as light as possible. For my month-long trip to New Zealand I not only thought about the minimum amount of perfect clothes to pack, but also what to pack them in. And, am I the only one who starts a new sewing project right before leaving on a trip?

I love travel bags. For this trip, I wanted a travel bag that will organize my art stuff, be smaller than a usual messenger bag, durable, have lovely little pockets for all of my favorite travel art supplies, my iPad, my phone, my cable pack, and a water bottle. Oh, sunglasses, lip stuff, snacks – whatever. But not big and not one cavernous pit like my other travel purse.

Here you go. Leather is durable, fairly waterproof, and I love the look and feel of it. This bag is just the right size and won’t clash with anything I wear…. not that I actually care too much about that.

A lovely tweedy looking cloth, a lot of drafting, and a very expensive trip to Tandy Leather…

The chance to pull out the leather working tools my dad sent to me and the purse findings I’ve had stashed away for longer than I care to tell you.

The front flap unzips to hold all my favorite travel-art supplies. Cool, eh? I’ll whisper behind my hand and let you know that in the entire month in New Zealand I opened it maybe twice. It didn’t turn out to be a trip with time to sit and draw. This means I MUST go back to New Zealand. Next time I’m going to plunk myself down in one place for as long as I can manage.

There you see the sweet little perfectly sized packets and how they fit just right? I had a perfectly sized water bottle too… that I left on the kitchen counter after filling it on my very last day in New Zealand. It was purple. I miss it. Kerry – I hope you LOVE it!

The strap unclips and hooks through a loop under the top handle and onto rings at the bottom of the bag and converts into a backpack. I absolutely love having a convertible bag so that I can be hands free when needed. It also really helps to keep stress off my shoulders when I pack it full of heavy things. I love the way it turned out.

Now – if you love all of these pinterest-perfect pictures, I urge you to tune in to the next post to see the real story of this bag’s construction. It’s a behind the scenes tell-all showing you every ridiculous mistake I made on the way here. Enjoy!

What are your absolute-must-haves when you travel?
What do you pack them in?