why Dichroic has two large handbags OR of Satchels, Zumas, geraniums and delphiniums

I want one of these, only with a shoulder strap. Also, 14″ x 6″ is too long; I want one shorter but with just as much interior space.

Or maybe what I want is Hermionie Granger’s purse from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which is evening bag-sized on the outside and large enough to carry clothing and camping gear for three plus a respectable library, on the inside. Only I want it to have organizer pockets, too, because it would really suck to have to hunt for your wallet in among the sleeping bags and books.

All of this is a way of saying that I received a Namaste Zuma bag in the mail yesterday, and it’s nice enough to get me interested in some of their other stuff. I generally prefer real leather, on the theory that fake leather is usually pretty crappy and the cows are being killed for meat anyway, so I was a bit worried about their “PVC-free, vegan faux leather”. But ths stuff is really nice; it’s soft and feels like good quality leather, it doesn’t have a fakey pattern stamped on it, and I’m told it wears well. It occurs to me that if I can get comparable quality, I’d just as soon not have dead animals involved in my fashion accessories.

I ordered the bag after deciding I wanted a larger purse, so that for instance if I’m going to the dentist and will have a lot of waiting time, I can throw in normal purse supplies, a book and my knitting. I was actually considering getting a really nice bag – I bought a good leather one on my last Dutch trip and have gotten a ton of use out of it – but the ones I found tended to be either poor quality or extremely expensive (designer bags are big here). Meanwhile over on the knitting sites people were talking about the great quality of bags from the likes of Namaste, Jordana Paige, or Offhand Designs – and those tend to run much cheaper than something from a bigger company that is marketed as a handbag. There probably are tons of small companies making handbags of similar quality and price, but knitter-word-of-mouth is very helpful for learning about products and getting a bunch of opinions – and since knitting is one of the things I want to carry, it’s nice to have pockets and closures and loops designed to facilitate it.

So that’s why I bought a knitting bag. Only thing is, the Zuma isn’t the bag I decided on. What I wanted was a Jordana Paige Knitter’s Satchel (knitting features and cool retro styling!). But the company’s own online sales will only ship within the US, and all of the other stores I checked either didn’t have it in stock or didn’t ship abroad. The one exception was Jimmy Bean – and they only had it in pink. I think I can rock a ladylike retro handbag, but a pink ladylike retro handbag is just too much! I asked around on Ravelry, but no one had any suggestions so I gave up and ordered the Zuma.

And then , a day or so later, Jordana Paige herself weighed in on the Ravelry discussion, offering to find someone who would sell me a Satchel. I couldn’t resist that kind of customer support, not when I did have the cash available. So now I have a Zuma (blue) and will soon have a Knitters’ Satchel (red) to stand beside it, rather like geraniums and delphiniums.

And both of those together, plus two international shipping fees, still cost me less than a “designer” bag at the mall.