How The Loop Was Born

After The Cloud, everyone assumed I'd just make more bobble bags. Same texture, different colours, maybe different sizes. And sure, I could have done that. But my brain doesn't work that way. Once I figure something out, I want to figure out the NEXT thing.

The Loop started as a doodle in my maths notebook. I was supposed to be doing algebra, but instead I was drawing these interlocking loops — like chain links, but softer. Rounder. More organic. I looked at them and thought: what if a whole bag was made of this pattern?

The technique is completely different from The Cloud. Where bobble stitches are about texture and softness, loop stitches are about structure and rhythm. Every loop has to be exactly the same size, exactly the same tension, or the whole pattern falls apart. It's like building a tiny piece of architecture, stitch by stitch.

I practised the loop stitch for three weeks before I even attempted the bag. Three weeks of just making swatches. My friends thought I'd lost it. 'You're making ANOTHER square?' Yes. Another square. Because if the square isn't perfect, the bag won't be either.

The first prototype was too stiff. It looked amazing but it felt like cardboard. The second was too floppy — beautiful loops but zero structure. The third was close. The fourth was closer. The fifth was The Loop.

What I love about it is how it catches light. The loops create these little shadows that shift and change depending on the angle. In morning light it looks completely different from how it looks at sunset. It's almost alive.

People ask me which one is my favourite — The Cloud or The Loop — and I genuinely can't choose. They're like two sides of my brain. The Cloud is the soft, dreamy, emotional side. The Loop is the precise, architectural, 'I-will-get-this-right-if-it-takes-me-a-thousand-tries' side. I need both.

Making The Loop taught me that discipline and creativity aren't opposites. The most creative thing I've ever made is also the most technically demanding. And that's beautiful.