{"id":20031,"date":"2025-05-05T12:33:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T02:33:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/?p=20031"},"modified":"2025-05-05T12:33:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T02:33:40","slug":"bags-of-creativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/country-living\/bags-of-creativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Bags of creativity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Doug and Lajla Jenkins have made a new home \u2014 and a business crafting bags of creativity \u2014 on the NSW South Coast.”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Doug Jenkins pauses as he guides several layers of heavy fabric <\/a>through the foot of his heavy-duty 1960 Singer sewing machine and explains that it\u2019s been the mainstay of his professional life since 1980. \u201cThis machine has done more kilometres than my car,\u201d the former upholsterer says. \u201cIt\u2019s 64 years old and still going strong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Doug and his Swedish-born wife Lajla call themselves the Carpetbaggers, a reference to the capacious and sturdy Mary Poppins-style travel bags<\/a> they hand-make in adjacent workshops beside their home in the NSW village of Bemboka, midway between Bega on the south coast and Cooma in the high plains of Monaro. \u201cI\u2019m the engine room and Lajla is the one with the artistic flair,\u201d Doug adds. \u201cShe\u2019s in charge of colour, texture and design and has a photographic memory for every bag we\u2019ve ever made, so
no two are the same.\u201d
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The magical Poppins bag, which in the Disney movie \u2014 itself nearly as old as Doug\u2019s sewing machine \u2014 accommodates everything from a gilt-edged mirror and a pot plant to a standard lamp. The origins of the carpetbag go back to early- to mid-19th century and the expansion of rail travel across Europe and the US. Carpetbags, fashioned from rug or carpet remnants, were popular as they are easier to carry than trunks and they came with the bonus capacity of being openable to double duty as lap rugs. In the years following the American Civil War, many people displaced by the war used carpetbags to transport their worldly goods. The term \u201ccarpetbaggers\u201d acquired pejorative associations in the States as it referred to opportunistic northerners moving to the southern states after the war to exploit the reconstruction. While Doug and Lajla are quick to distance themselves from this connotation, they add that they did move from the north (the Nowra district) to the south eight years ago in search of a mortgage-free life and a convenient home from which to run their burgeoning carpetbag business – the bags of creativity business.
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\u201cDoug had retired from upholstering due to issues with repetitive strain,\u201d Lajla explains. \u201cIt was his sister\u2019s birthday and we wanted to give her something special. Lajla found this old piece of kilim [rug] and we made her a bag. Other people admired it and we just went from there and started taking orders.\u201d
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The Jenkins say they use an 1869 pattern for the bags and they stick to the traditional format of wooden frames and leather straps for closure. Zips and metal clasps are only used if a customer requests them. Lajla and daughter Nina scour op shops and second-hand outlets for suitable vintage bedspreads, rug offcuts and other heavy fabrics for the body material, while the other components are similarly upcycled. They collect leather belts and offcuts for the details and upcycle skirting boards, picture frames and other wooden offcuts for the timber components. Even the base of the bag is made from recycled materials as Doug fuses two sheets of used corflute from real-estate signs to make a solid insert.
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Doug and Lajla are determined to keep their prices as low as possible, as Lajla says they want people who love what they create to be able to afford their bags of creativity. While they occasionally head to markets, these days most of their sales come from their Instagram page or through Maggie & Rosie\u2019s Antique Emporium in Bega. \u201cWe were visiting the shop one day and Lajla bought 15 metres of old curtain fabric from Jason [Sawaqued, the shop\u2019s owner],\u201d Doug says. \u201cWe took it home and made a bag, then showed Jason. He\u2019s been our major stockist ever since. He even looks out for fabrics for us when he\u2019s on his rounds of deceased estates and auctions.\u201d
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Doug and Lajla also take commissions, making carpetbags from fabrics of sentimental value to their clients. They\u2019ve repurposed granny\u2019s old coat and much-loved, but threadbare, rugs into carpetbags so the memories of their original owners live on.
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It takes them a good day to make each bag, but Lajla says they are not interested in calculating an hourly rate. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we work all day, every day on them,\u201d she says. \u201cIf we get tired, we can take a break from sewing and working from home means we can adjust our hours to suit ourselves. We love making those bags of creativity and seeing the pleasure it gives people to own something truly bespoke. You can\u2019t put a price on that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doug and Lajla Jenkins have made a new home \u2014 and a business crafting bags of creativity \u2014 on the NSW […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[336,170],"tags":[71,454,456,455],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20031"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20118,"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20031\/revisions\/20118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.australiancountry.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}