Happy birthday to me! :)

Unlike many of my clothes and accessories this bag isn't thrifted. It's a bag by Jawbreaker that I absolutely love the look of, it has multiple pockets, tons of space inside, and is clearly great quality as I've had it for over 10 years and it's almost good as new. It's the only handbag I own, and I've no desire to get a new one.

However the one bit I've had to replace multiple times is the shoulder strap, since that's the bit that gets most wear and tear.

It originally had the kind of strap which clips on, but the problem with those is that after years of metal rubbing against metal, eventually it wears away to the point where the clip is thin enough that it snaps. Last couple of times I just put a new clip on, however this time not only were the clips worn away but so were the d-rings you're supposed to attach them to, so I did a more thorough job.

First of all I unpicked the stitching attaching the d-rings to the bag and replaced them with these large rectangular ones. I always save metal hardware from clothing items I mod or that are finally old and worn enough to be thrown away, and I think these came from a skirt. Happily I had two the same, so I used bits of the old strap which weren't too badly worn to make loops to sew them on.

I sewed them by hand with thick top-stitch thread doubled over, and I even did those criss-cross stitching lines to make them extra secure.

I then went to a nearby charity shop hoping to find a cheap bag I could steal the strap from, but even better, I came across this belt, the construction of which was extremely similar to the detailing already on the bag. It was £1, way cheaper than a replacement strap from ebay, which I have also bought in the past.

I didn’t want to cut the buckle off because the belt fabric would fray, so I unpicked the stitching around the buckle instead, and put the buckle away in my crafting box to hopefully reuse in the future - like I said, I save everything.

I wanted the eyelets on the belt to be visible as they match the rest of the eyelets on the bag, so I put the belt through the rectangle and folded it over as far as I could while still showing all the eyelets, then sewed it shut. Again, I did multiple rows of stitching to keep it secure, and I also oversewed down both sides.

I don't have a sliding buckle that would enable me to adjust the strap length, but I never adjust my bag strap anyway, so I just put the strap over my shoulder, adjusted it to a length that I liked, and sewed that end together too. This was a long belt so I ended up doubling it over quite far, but that's good as it will make this section of the new strap extra thick, so hopefully it's extra strong.

And there we go, it looks as if I bought it like this!

This was handmade. Wish I was that talented, it’s amazing. 

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