Hearth and Soul

fabric creations

About Magpie Road Yoga Bags



The Hearth and Soul Yoga Mat Bag is lined, with a beautiful hand woven toggle, interesting buttons and fabrics - they are a great addition to your yoga wardrobe. They cost $120 and post and package is $12 in Aotearoa New Zealand. International shipping is not currently available.

Here's the little note that accompanies each bag:

from buttons
to threads
fabrics
to vintage ties
the origins of much of a Magpie Bag is unknown: An off-cut, an op-shop find, someone's Aunty's cousin's clean out. They find their way to my stash.
What makes a Hearth and Soul bag special - some hand stitching, a hand woven toggle, and those pieces of the unknown - means they don't go well in the washing machine. A spot clean only when needed with care for those fabrics often as unknown as their origins.
I hope you have as much fun with your Hearth and Soul bag as I had making it. My workroom is a haven of colour, a sanctuary, and adds a little ripple of handmade, artisan products in a sea of mass produced.

I also make other bags from random scraps.

To check out what I have available at the moment, pop me through an email and I'll send you the latest offerings.
Check out these bags
This is a couple of bags before they winged their way to new owners. 

from buttons to threads


There is a moment as crafter, not disimilar to saying you do yoga, where someone says they wish they could do that too. It's a mistaken idea that somehow we started out good at both when it couldn't be further from the truth. My path to craft was filled with stuff ups, unpicking, putting projects in the bottom of a basket somewhere for a mythic day when it would be all right. Now there are less of those moments because of practice. Long hours of stitching, and an eye honed by those hours. 

We live in a fast food world so the idea of sitting for hours doing anything goes against this. My bigger projects can mean weeks of stitching, hours that I don't count because I don't want to equate the hours with the worth. That equation nearly killed my practice. 

When I started making the mainstay of the yoga mat bags, I was worried that I would feel like I was suddenly a production line. They are different enough, requiring pairing of fabrics and buttons enough to keep some of creative juice going. I always have another project on the go either for sale or for myself - one that is vastly different to the bags. I check in along the way. The day they start to feel like production, is the day I stop. My craft is more important. 

For those who want to make, to try, to find their creative self. It does take practice and a willingness to always have beginners mind. The same beginners mind we need to find on our yoga mat.