Scraps of Freedom Americana Market Tote by Carried Away Team Leader Krystal of Solsisters is a great companion for all American pastimes like beach combing, picnic going, play dates at the park or a day out shopping at your local farmer's market.



Roomy at a generous 16" wide by 14" high, it features a large inside zip pocket, a divided regular pocket for your cell phones or digital cameras and a key hook to keep your keys from migrating all the way to the bottom of the bag. The bag sits comfortably under your shoulder and expands to hold a LOT of stuff. The bottom is double interfaced, but not stiff, to make it easy to roll the bag up and pack it for weekend getaways.



In America's early tradition of waste-not, want-not and pioneer quilting from whatever fabric was on hand, the surface of the bag has been crazy patched over in mostly red and blue scraps. America's ever blooming optimisim is recognized through a hint of sunny yellow in the Hibicus flowers on fabric brought back from Hawaii by Solsister's mom. This reference to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is also is a quiet tribute to America's fighting men and women from World War II.


The "star" feature of the bag is of course, the bold white-on-white raw edge folded origami stars, made by Solsister's 11 year old daughter. The stars symbolize our fighting spirit. No matter how ragged we get, we still keep going. The stars will fray a bit with washing but don't worry, they are very firmly appliqued in place.

The bag is finished off with American flag tabs connecting dark navy batik shoulder straps with gunmetal D-rings. Lined in a light blue fabric with streamers of white dots. It went out with me last night to the open air Star Spangled Spectacular concert by the Las Vegas Philharmonic and was commented on by some of Las Vegas' local notables. You're sure to draw similar compliments when you own this bag.

This bag will be sold through the Carried Away Team shop. All proceeds from the sale of the bags listed will go to send care packages to our "adopted" fighting women. Through herobox.org, a serving solider can make a personal request for a care package. Groups or individuals can adopt soliders and send the requested items in a Hero box. Carried Away is proud to support our troops with our own handiwork and we hope you'll buy a bag to show your pride and send some love to a serving solider.

Soliders are delighted to receive these thoughtful gifts from home.

The folks from Prime Engineering got together to pack and send boxes to our troops.

Photos Courtesy of herobox's flickr stream