Calgarian Jill Lennox, creator of the Stuffitbag padded laptop computer case, confessed the idea for the product came from personal necessity.
“While I was away at school I used to carry around my laptop wrapped up in a pair sweatpants,” she explained.
The whole sweatpants around the computer thing was going on about five years ago when Lennox was studying business at Bishop’s University in Quebec. She soon realized there had to be a more practical, less embarrassing, way to protect her computer.
Lennox pondered coming up with something different from the cases available at the time, which she found too bulky and boring since they only seemed to come in black.
“I was looking for a fun solution for carrying my laptop around,” she said. “So I kind of created a duvet or pillow-type product. I knew someone who sewed in DeWinton and she helped me get things started.”
That person Lennox enlisted for help was seamstress Laurie Irving, a friend for more than a decade. They met as part of the Calgary Stampede Showriders equestrian group.
Not along after the first Stuffitbag was produced Lennox got a web site up and started selling the unique product. Now, five years later, Irving is kept busy producing the bags to fill orders from not only Canada and the United States but overseas as well.
She currently creates about 120 bags a week and does them all using a conventional sewing machine.
“It takes about 20 minutes per bag to make them,” Irving said. “That’s right from the very beginning of cutting them out to finally sewing them up.”
She said she is pleased by the increasing global popularity of the padded computer cases.
“It’s nice to see that people all over the world are using the bags that I have seen at my house,” she explained.
The 49-year-old Irving has found sewing the Stuffitbags to be the perfect part-time job to complement her work driving school bus for the Foothills School Division. She’s got her routine down to the point where she can produce many of the computer cases in between her morning and afternoon bus runs.
Lennox provided a pattern for those first bags, which had to be tweaked and modified, Irving recalled. The computer accessory now comes in six vibrant patterns with equally colourful names including “Forrest Gump” and “Bubble Watermelon”.
There are also four different sizes, including one recently added for people toting around a relatively new but highly popular electronic device.
“Jill just brought in this past year the nine-inch bags for iPads,” Irving said. “We did up some of them and I think they went fairly well.”
As the popularity and demand for the Stuffitbag grows, Lennox, a 24-year-old entrepreneur, said she is pleased to have Irving not only taking care of the production but assisting her in the development of new models of the product as well.
“It’s a fabulous relationship with Laurie.” Lennox said, “She’s creative and I’m creative so it’s a real collaboration.”
More information on the fashionable computer cases visit www.stuffitbag.com
