Doug and Lajla Jenkins have made a new home — and a business crafting bags of creativity — on the NSW South Coast.”
Doug Jenkins pauses as he guides several layers of heavy fabric through the foot of his heavy-duty 1960 Singer sewing machine and explains that it’s been the mainstay of his professional life since 1980. “This machine has done more kilometres than my car,” the former upholsterer says. “It’s 64 years old and still going strong.”
Doug and his Swedish-born wife Lajla call themselves the Carpetbaggers, a reference to the capacious and sturdy Mary Poppins-style travel bags they hand-make in adjacent workshops beside their home in the NSW village of Bemboka, midway between Bega on the south coast and Cooma in the high plains of Monaro. “I’m the engine room and Lajla is the one with the artistic flair,” Doug adds. “She’s in charge of colour, texture and design and has a photographic memory for every bag we’ve ever made, so
no two are the same.”
The magical Poppins bag, which in the Disney movie — itself nearly as old as Doug’s sewing machine — accommodates everything from a gilt-edged mirror and a pot plant to a standard lamp. The origins of the carpetbag go back to early- to mid-19th century and the expansion of rail travel across Europe and the US. Carpetbags, fashioned from rug or carpet remnants, were popular as they are easier to carry than trunks and they came with the bonus capacity of being openable to double duty as lap rugs. In the years following the American Civil War, many people displaced by the war used carpetbags to transport their worldly goods. The term “carpetbaggers” acquired pejorative associations in the States as it referred to opportunistic northerners moving to the southern states after the war to exploit the reconstruction. While Doug and Lajla are quick to distance themselves from this connotation, they add that they did move from the north (the Nowra district) to the south eight years ago in search of a mortgage-free life and a convenient home from which to run their burgeoning carpetbag business – the bags of creativity business.
“Doug had retired from upholstering due to issues with repetitive strain,” Lajla explains. “It was his sister’s birthday and we wanted to give her something special. Lajla found this old piece of kilim [rug] and we made her a bag. Other people admired it and we just went from there and started taking orders.”
The Jenkins say they use an 1869 pattern for the bags and they stick to the traditional format of wooden frames and leather straps for closure. Zips and metal clasps are only used if a customer requests them. Lajla and daughter Nina scour op shops and second-hand outlets for suitable vintage bedspreads, rug offcuts and other heavy fabrics for the body material, while the other components are similarly upcycled. They collect leather belts and offcuts for the details and upcycle skirting boards, picture frames and other wooden offcuts for the timber components. Even the base of the bag is made from recycled materials as Doug fuses two sheets of used corflute from real-estate signs to make a solid insert.
Doug and Lajla are determined to keep their prices as low as possible, as Lajla says they want people who love what they create to be able to afford their bags of creativity. While they occasionally head to markets, these days most of their sales come from their Instagram page or through Maggie & Rosie’s Antique Emporium in Bega. “We were visiting the shop one day and Lajla bought 15 metres of old curtain fabric from Jason [Sawaqued, the shop’s owner],” Doug says. “We took it home and made a bag, then showed Jason. He’s been our major stockist ever since. He even looks out for fabrics for us when he’s on his rounds of deceased estates and auctions.”
Doug and Lajla also take commissions, making carpetbags from fabrics of sentimental value to their clients. They’ve repurposed granny’s old coat and much-loved, but threadbare, rugs into carpetbags so the memories of their original owners live on.
It takes them a good day to make each bag, but Lajla says they are not interested in calculating an hourly rate. “It’s not like we work all day, every day on them,” she says. “If we get tired, we can take a break from sewing and working from home means we can adjust our hours to suit ourselves. We love making those bags of creativity and seeing the pleasure it gives people to own something truly bespoke. You can’t put a price on that.”
