There is always a point in making something new when I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

I reached that point this week with a zipper.

I’ve been working on a smaller WOOLBORNE bag, and I knew almost from the beginning that I wanted it to close differently from the first Cloud bags. A zipper seemed simple enough. Handbags have zippers. I know how zippers work. How difficult could this be?

Apparently, fairly difficult.

The problem isn’t really the zipper. The problem is asking a zipper to live between raw fleece, cork and a lining while still allowing the wool to remain what I want it to be.

I don’t want to force the fleece into behaving like conventional fabric simply because I know how conventional fabric is supposed to be sewn. The texture of the wool is part of the work. The locks need room. The edge needs to feel intentional without looking overly manufactured. And the zipper teeth need enough distance from the fleece that they don’t spend their lives eating wool.

So I started experimenting.

This is something I should probably be used to by now. I rarely make something exactly the way I first imagine it.

I change things.

Sometimes because an idea looks better in my head than it does once I can hold it in my hands. Sometimes because the construction simply doesn't work. And sometimes because the materials lead me somewhere I hadn't planned to go.

This little bag has changed repeatedly.

What began as a smaller version of the Cloud bag has slowly developed its own construction. I wanted the strap attachments to tuck inside so the bag could also be carried as a clutch. I wanted a zipper, but I didn't want the fleece anywhere near the zipper teeth. I wanted the cork to create a clean transition between those two very different materials without taking over the bag.

Each decision created another problem to solve.

At first I made the cork section around the zipper much deeper. Technically, it worked. Visually, it didn't. There was too much cork and too much bulk, and suddenly that little construction decision was beginning to dictate the proportions of the entire bag.

So I ripped it out.

That's prototyping.

It isn't making the same thing over and over until I get better at making it. It's making something, looking at what happened, and being willing to change my mind.

The funny thing is that the moments when I don't know what I'm doing are often the moments when the work becomes mine.

I can look at how other bags are constructed. I can watch someone install a zipper. I can learn the accepted way of doing something. All of that is useful.

But no one else's bag is made from the fleece sitting on my table.

Wool doesn't behave like ordinary fabric. It has thickness, movement, locks and an irregular edge. The very things that make me want to work with it are also the things that make conventional construction difficult.

So the question eventually stops being, How am I supposed to do this?

It becomes, What does this particular piece need?

So, still working on the zipper. That will be this week's WOOLBORNE project.

~ Karen