In 2008 our best friend brought back some Blue Mountain Coffee from her trip to Jamaica. We had never seen or thought of a stenciled coffee bean sack until then. Being pretty close to vegans at that time, we got the idea to start a line of handmade wallets and things for people like ourselves, that will not buy leather and want something unique and original. Living in New England, it wasn't hard to find local roasters that were totally on board with our idea and willing to give/sell us some coffee sacks. Now here's where the breaking of the sewing machines started. We had been sewing for years and years on our own projects. We stitched our hand-weavings into pouches, our knee-highs into sock monkeys, recycled t-shirts into backpacks, hemmed our pants ... well you get the idea. But we had never encountered such a fabric that machines just seemed to hate. They broke needles , popped out of time, and stopped oiling themselves in rebellion. It was clearly time to bring in the heavies. We found some used machines from the 60's and took them in, oiled them up, and whispered sweet nothings into there ears. They are dusty (what isn't in here) but still going strong. We have them in our live/ work studio in downtown Providence. We know that we are a little crazy for not only continuing to work with this rugged fabric, but to do it in our living space, but we love it and would not trade it for anything.