A Letter to the Person Holding My Bag

Dear you,

We've probably never met. You might not even know my name. But I want you to know something: I made this for you. Not for 'a customer' or 'the market' or whatever grown-up business words exist for the person who buys something. For YOU. The actual human holding this bag right now.

When I started your bag, it was just a ball of yarn. That's it. Just yarn. And I sat on my bed, probably still in my school uniform because I always forget to change, and I started the first chain. One loop. Then another. Then another. And slowly, over twenty-something hours, that ball of yarn became the thing you're holding.

There were moments during those twenty hours when my hands cramped and I wanted to stop. Moments when I miscounted and had to unravel six rows. A moment when my cat sat on my yarn and tangled it into a nightmare. But I kept going, because I knew that someone — you — would eventually hold this and I wanted it to be perfect.

I want you to use it. Really use it. Don't keep it in a cupboard being precious about it. Throw your phone in it. Your keys. That lipstick you always lose. A snack for later. This bag was made to be part of your life, not just decoration.

If it gets dirty, you can gently hand wash it. If a stitch comes loose, message me and I'll fix it. If you love it, tell someone. If you really love it, tell everyone.

Every time you carry this bag, you're carrying a little piece of a fourteen-year-old girl who believes, with her whole entire heart, that handmade things make the world better. That slow is better than fast. That imperfect is more beautiful than perfect. That a bag made by human hands, with human love, over human hours, is worth more than anything a machine could spit out in seconds.

Thank you for choosing handmade. Thank you for choosing slow. Thank you for choosing me.

With love and yarn and slightly cramped fingers, Kaira