About
It started small. Jean Zakotnik loved knitting and handbags. Patricia Valdez liked to crochet and had some seamstress skills. The idea was to knit and felt about fifty bags a year and sell them at high-end, juried art and craft shows.
Jean designed the patterns combining a sense of style and logic. Both loving and hating the unexpected surprises of felting; she attempted to control it by making swatches, recording shrinkage factors, yarn content, dye color, knitting gauge and needle size. After hours of knitting many bags and courageously submerging them into the hot water, Jean finally perfected the process of shrinking and shaping, creating BAG JZ.
Jean turned BAG JZ over to Patricia for lining. "Give it two pockets and make it green, no zippers or snaps". "Oh, could you also design a crocheted flower to put on it?" Patricia, with a sense of quality surpassed by none other, lined the bag with sturdy cotton, hand-stitching the top all around.
After 20 some bags were complete Jean applied to their first show.
Then the train left the station or more appropriately the plane left the airport... It went like this....
At the Washington DC airport Jean sits knitting. A gentleman approaches and asks "what are you knitting?" She replies "a handbag to be felted". He says "my mother loves to knit and she is homebound, do you think she could knit some bags for you?" Over the next year many similar conversations took place in hospital waiting rooms and any place Jean was seen knitting. Before long, there were many women working and knitting FELTED HANDMADE HANDBAGS.
JZ Bag knitters are women from diverse backgrounds, living here in the USA. Some are retirees, others stayed with us just long enough to earn money to get through a tough time. Some joined us as a means to re-enter the job force after rehabilitation. And there are those who knit while recovering from an illness or simply because they need the extra money to make ends meet. Most importantly, they all love to knit.
Our growth is a result of our unique bags, our hardworking knitters and seamstress and last but not least, Karyn B who does it all, from knitting to the hard work of shaping the wet bags, adding the finishing touches of buttons or flowers, all while leading our sales and merchandising efforts.
Lot's has changed since our first JZ BAG. We now produce about 500 bags each year. We have a full show schedule and a fantastic website. Oh, and we now use snaps and grommets, but zippers are only available by custom order.
So please purchase a JZ BAG, they not only feel good, but they give you a lot to feel good about!