Cork - new in the trend!

Luckily, looking for materials for a large bag, I came across the fairly new material available on the net, whose features cast a spell on me. It is the so-called cork fabric.

It is soft, pleasant to touch, can be printed, embroidered, sewed (!!!), embossing, riveting, stamping, can be cut by hand and of course not fringing. Every piece you pick up is a unique piece of nature - beyond that sustainable! Cork just has all the great features that man / woman can want from a textile material! Cork fabric is a material that causes a genuine (peeled) cork layer to be permanently applied to a substrate. You can not wash cork fabric, just wipe it off with a damp cloth. Admit, that's the only drawback.

Cork is available in different thicknesses and sections - unfortunately also in different qualities. Apart from fabric, it is also processed into cork paper and cork tape.


The following parts of my bag are made of cork (my chosen thickness about 0,7 mm)

  • most importantly, the letters on the front
  • the bottom of the bag
  • the lower 6 cm of front and back as well as the side parts
  • all zipper tags (all worked differently: braided, sewn, riveted or rolled to tassel)
  • the lateral interventions on the upper zipper, which should prevent the insight and intervention in the bag deliberately
  • the two Taschenbaumler
  • the reinforcement of the short handles and - and last but not least
  • The background for the self-made personal label, which is sewn on the side of the bag.

The contrasting material for the common processing in a large bag was quickly found: so-called outdoor linen, which is slightly impregnated and thus dirt-repellent, but still does not hide his linen character.

I have extensively reinforced the linen with Decovil light.

On the back of the bag you can see the horizontally slightly protruding zippered pocket. Behind it is still an equally large compartment that can be closed with a magnetic push button.


At the side parts of the bag I worked a slightly bevelled front pocket - at the back narrow side my personal label. This I have printed after many attempts mirrored on a T-shirt foil for light fabrics and then ironed on the linen fabric. Since this does not fray, I was able to prune him with the pinking scissors and sew on a piece of cork.

When looking at the front, the cork letters that I chose because the recipient in the private sector and professional environment very much like books in the hand. The letters are applied in satin stitch with shiny, thin embroidery thread and an embroidery needle. I have chosen the stitch length so large that the needle can not shred the cork and the stitch width is correspondingly low, that of the few cork material even optimally much advantage.

In contrast, I used to embroider the Taschenbaumler thicker dull wool yarn, which clearly applied and the embroidery emphasized even more.


The bag is 43 cm wide, 37 cm high and has a depth of 14 cm: So you can u. a. put in an A4 folder conveniently. So that not everyone can look unhindered inside the bag or can be long, I worked here a so-called recessed zipper, which has 10 cm more in length, so you can open it and thus the bag wide.

But now to what is almost most important to us women: the inner life! That's why I was happy to volunteer for a number of sewing technology challenges.

The bag lining is made of high quality heavy taffeta in black and gold. As you can see in the photos, I sewed 5 pockets side by side on one of the two large inner surfaces, from which the three middle pins can be picked up. The two outer ones have one or two folds so that even bulky small parts fit into it. These five pockets are padded and so durable. About these bags is - how could it be different with women - still a zipper pocket.

On the opposite large forage area, I have put on a single, larger bag, and used as an eye-catcher brown net fabric and as a bag lining olive taffeta. For the zippers inside the bag I chose a contrasting color - also, so you can find them faster.

Because I still had some fabric left over from a reading pillow, which was printed with books, I could use this pachwork-like in one of the zipper pockets and piping.

The tiresome problem of such big bags is u. a. Finding the key: For this I have sewn on one side of a band, at the bottom of a carabiner waiting to be hooked ?.

Also in one of the feeding seams of the entire bag is a label sewn on which the processed materials are printed - just like in the clothing.

Because it was almost impossible for me to photograph in the shoals of the bag, did I take a photo of the inside pockets before putting the entire food piece into my pocket?

A question then surfaced when choosing the strap: Here I decided against plastic strap, because it shines so strong and often rubs on our shoulders on our own textiles. Besides, it would not have matched the cork style. So I made cotton tape that I still decorated with rivets when attaching the short handle.

Not only the rivets, but all other metal parts of the bag are made of old brass, because I find that it fits in its smoky-dark tone just better to the fabrics. Also, the zipper slider of the dark brown zippers are made of old brass. In the orange-colored I have yard goods processed with color-matching sliders. All zippers have a 5 mm wide spiral, which corresponds to the robust impression of the bag and can at the same time be sutured easily with a good sewing machine.

For the stitching seams with which I've stitched off several seams, the top edge of the bag, or even some seams on label and bag makers, I've used thicker dull yarn and a topstitch needle that has a much larger eye so the thread will not tears. The stitch length should be at least 3.5 - 4 for the sake of effect (just try it on the fabric remainder: the bigger, the more decorative).

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