Cooperative Coffee Burlap Market Tote

If you follow Lina and Vi on Facebook, you may know that we introduced a brand new burlap bag this week! Please welcome the Cooperative Coffee burlap market tote - a light-weight shoulder bag with burlap straps and a colorful cotton lining.

Although this bag looks similar to our other totes, this one is slightly different under the covers giving it a more casual, slouchy look for the easy-going spring and summer months. I chose to leave out the heavy-weight stabilizer on the burlap this design so that it's not as stiff and is more relaxed. That being said, the bottom of the exterior is sewn from a heavy-duty, thick upholstery canvas with a soft, suede-like touch so this market tote is not a weak one. It's durable and strong enough for those heavy loads that you accumulate on a walk to the local farmer's market or the local street fair during the upcoming sunny months, without the added bulk of the chunky seams and stabilizer.

I chose to use a coral cotton fabric for the interior of the bag. It's very simple on the inside with no pockets and just room for all those organic vegetables that you will be toting home on your trip to the market.  I love the pop of color on this bag, and how it balances the warm tones of the Cooperative logo original to the coffee bean burlap sack. Our friends over at RoosRoast in Ann Arbor graciously provided us the original coffee bean burlap sack for this one.  (Did you hear that they are moving to a new location in downtown Ann Arbor? This is exciting, especially if you are local to the area!)

My two favorite elements of this design are the large exterior slide pocket on the back of the bag, sewn from the same tan upholstery fabric, and the handmade burlap straps.

No zippers or tricky buttons, just a simple design for the simple months ahead. You can find it available for sale now in our Etsy shop.

In other news, I've been spending some of my free time reading a new book that you may find interesting as well called Overdressed. I learned about it via a Book Club blog post on Colette Blog. I am about three quarters through the book, and I'm really enjoying it. To be honest, I found the first few chapters to be quite repetitive, but as the book has progressed, I'm finding it's much better segmented and structured later on. It's really a great view into the mass manufacturing of clothing and the implications it has had on the industry as a whole, from quality standards to price points to labor relations.  If you're interested in those topics, I recommend checking it out as a new read this spring.

Enjoy!
Erica