A Tool Butler and a Good Cause

At the end of last year, I received Jordana Paige‘s new Tool Butler to review. Every time I’ve sat down to write about it in the last seven months, something else has come up and my discomfort about slacking off has increased steadily. Go me.

But today is the day. Because tomorrow, July 18th 2012, Jordana is having a huge sale of imperfect bags, with 100% of proceeds being donated to the Preeclampsia Foundation. It’s a great event and a create cause, and now that I’ve alerted you to it, I hereby present you with my thoughts on the Tool Butler, in bullets because it’s been too long since I’ve made a list.

What I Love

• The Tool Butler is designed to hold both short rigid things like crochet hooks and double-pointed knitting needles and circular knitting needles. This means that someone like me, who’s just as likely to crochet as to knit (and good gods, I haven’t touched a 14″ straight knitting needle in years), can keep all their tools in one place. Or, more realistically for someone like me who has way too many crochet hooks, all their important tools. In the last several months, I’ve known exactly where to find my hooks and needles. This is a revelation.
• It’s very simply organized. There’s a full-zip section for tools (pictured above), and then a full-zip accordion section for circular needles or anything else you’d want to put in those zippered compartments (pictured below).
• If I needed to take, like, a whole set of interchangeable needles or hooks with me, I could fit them all in there with room to spare. WIN.

What I Could Love More

• I could use more pockets in the front section. As you can see, I couldn’t possibly keep a full array of DPN sizes in there along with my full array of crochet hook sizes. That said, if I’m honest with myself I admit that I really only use DPNs in, like, four sizes.
• I took the Tool Butler on a long trip in January, and it’s quite big and heavy to travel with; it’s certainly not a purse staple, unless your purse is considered by others to be luggage. Of course, this is because it holds so much, so I’m not really complaining. It now stays at home, in a drawer where I always keep it (kind of like how I always keep my keys in the same place so I don’t lose them because I’d totally lose them otherwise, and let’s be honest, I still sometimes lose them; I now always know where to find my hooks and needles). That said, if I weren’t travelling these days with a portable crib (it’s lightweight; get off me) and a car seat, I might not be as bothered by taking up a lot of space with crafts tools. So.
• One of the zipper pulls in the accordion section fell off. I’m not sure when. I wish it hadn’t done that.
• The outside zippers get a little hard to open when they’re fully closed. This is a minor factor. It’s not like the Butler is designed to be water tight or that I’d expect it to be, so keeping the zippers open about an inch isn’t a problem at all.

Overall, I’m very happy to have one place to keep all the things I use most often instead of having to keep them in separate places – circs scattered throughout several drawers and shelves and bags, crochet hooks spread around all over the damn place. In no small way, the Tool Butler has made me a more efficient – and certainly less foul-mouthed – crafter.

And there you have it. To boot, you now also know that Jordana Paige is a fine human who does good things through her business. Perhaps you’d like to buy an imperfect bag for yourself or someone else tomorrow…