Making-do Laptop Bag

     Not having any fancy sound system, I use my laptop for the music in the dance class a friend and I teach. Since that entails carrying it around for a few hours, I wanted to be able to carry it in something padded. My backpack has a padded section for a laptop, so I used that all last semester. Easy! Classy and professional? Not so much. :) I didn't want to bother making one from scratch (foam is so expensive etc.), so I started keeping an eye out for inexpensive laptop/messenger bags.

     Then one day, the heroine went to a office-supply store for binders, folders and the like. She happened to stumble on the clearance section, and lo and behold! A laptop bag! But what's this? Where is a tag? A price? hm. She made inquiries with the sales clerks, and after some confussion and a very little bartering, she was very satisfied to make the purchase for less than $10.00. But look! There is the rather plain bag, the very nice strap, but where do they connect?? Not a hint of a possiblilty. Purchasing the bag nevertheless, she concludes the padded bag must have been removable from a more complete set, and lost its way. And, what do you think she does?

     She takes, as stated above, a rather plain (some might say ugly) laptop bag, a shoulder strap, and adds into the mixture a yard of embossed faux-suede and D-rings.

  

     She makes an exact copy of the original bag in suede, adds a generous pocket to the back, and on this bag includes D-rings by which to connect the shoulder strap. Then she quickly whip-stitched the bags together all around the top and flap.

















     So far so good! The one minor problem is the way that the D-rings don't like to take the weight of the laptop. They'll hold, but (as you can see above) they twist sideways as soon as they are pulled on. Any brilliant solutions to save the heroines's day? :)