Thursday, August 02, 2007
Research
Spent all day sewing coffee cozies then I bought some 40 oz and 24 oz beers for research.
I'm assuming I can write these off.
I got a custom order from Matt Dalton today to make a beer cozy similar to my last one, but for a smaller bottle. He wants a matching wallet as well.
Labels: crafts
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Modded MoYo Trucker Hat
Chris from MoYo was cool enough to give me a Missouri State Yo-Yo Contest hat.
I decked it out with a MoYo pin he gave me and also added a matching sterling silver chain where along the top.
It's a killer look, if I do say so myself, and I'm planning on doing my next run of Drown Radio hats in a similar style.
I decked it out with a MoYo pin he gave me and also added a matching sterling silver chain where along the top.
It's a killer look, if I do say so myself, and I'm planning on doing my next run of Drown Radio hats in a similar style.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Alternative Press Expo Part II
Back from a long weekend at APE. I had a good time this year, meeting new cartoonists and trading comics. Hell, I even made a profit (and so did some of the other cartoonists in our group too). But the main reason we table together at APE is to promote our chapter of the Cartoonist Conspiracy, garnering new members and promoting our cell. So even though I didn't loose money tabling, I really won't find out how successful this year was until our next Cartoonist Conspiracy meeting (this thursday).
Sunday was a very slow day, so I took the chance to walk around a bit and look for my favorite artists... unfortunately so did they. First stop, Jason Shiga's table to see what he's got up his sleeve this year. He wasn't around, but I checked out his books (bought a copy of Knock Knock and a tiny mini comic) and picked up a copy of the Shiga challenge. The Shiga Challenge is a simple one page set of drawings of 7 polaroids. The game is to figure out what day of the week the pictures are taken on. I walked a bit more then came back to my booth and sold some comics and hats while I tried to figure out the puzzle.
An hour later I tried to catch Shiga again, but missed him, I did bump into other friends of mine though and chatted with the cats at 7000 BC (a Cartoonist Conspiracy cell out of New Mexico) about setting up a C.C. distro from cell to cell. Then I stopped by the Global Hobo camp and asked if the guy who made this awesome mini comic about a boy with a worm in his head had any new books. Then I came back to my booth and solved the Shiga puzzle.
Finally on my third walk around I caught up with Shiga and got a copy of his CD for figuring out the damn puzzle. Shiga is in my mind a cartooning super-hero, and one of the few cats in the entire expo that I actually get dumbfounded around. Everything he does is so inventive and original. His newest book, Bookhunter, takes place in the Bay Area in the 70's. It follows a "Dirty Harry" type library police character that chases overdue book offenders around in these epic scenes. Shiga's most known though for his crazy ass choose your own type books that really fuck with the comics medium. He's capable of taking a concept book (like the choose your own) and actually weave together a story that is so good that it doesn't come across kitschy. In fact, Meanwhile..., the first choose your own of his that I bought, actually involves a time machine which greatly adds to the choose your own adventure. In Meanwhile..., the reader doesn't choose the "correct" ending, but instead just travels down a different path each time. All of the endings have happened and in order for you to do something one time, you have to off previously done something else in another time for it work. Fucking brilliant.
Anyway, I'm a total fanboy and got a pic and autograph of Jason.
Some people comment on how APE gets supposedly less and less comics oriented every year. The reason for that is simple, APE is not at all cheap and if you are an independent publisher with only a few different issues out of your zine/mini comic/whatever, you have to sell a hundred copies of each book just to break even (assuming you are probably selling books that cost you $.75 and you are charging $2). Now alternately, consider someone bringing in plush dolls at $30 each. All they have to do is sell maybe 8 dolls to break even at APE.
From selling at expos like this I know that the hardest part is just getting people to stop at your booth. They added 200 new tables this year, but your average shopper is probably still spending the same amount time at the expo this year as they did the last. Meaning they are dashing around trying not to get distracted until they have found whatever specific vendors they are looking for.
So I started a little experiment... Okay, that's bullshit, I came up with a neat trick to get folks to check out my book. I once worked for a man in Nashville that was the greatest salesman ever. He owned a yo-yo shop called Yo Momma's, whenever he would see a kid around that was sheepishly checking out the shop, he would toss a yo-yo at them. Obviously the kid would catch it, and then finally come over and hang out. What I did was playing with the same basic human nature. If there were lots of people walking, but nobody stopping, I would knock a comic off and wait for someone to kindly pick it up and place it back on the table... Then I had them! "Hey that's a great comic you have there. It's about pancakes and the human spirit." or "Oh cool, you saw my book. It's about overcoming great adversity at a Denny's... With syrup!"
It worked great. People would laugh, then I could get them talking and tell them about our group and when we get together and all that. I got quite a few sales off of the technique, but really it was just something fun to do and way better than just standing around. Most of the time people caught that it was an act right away, which was cool cause we could just laugh about it and I'd say stupid stuff like "Ya, they are flying off the shelf today.".
I had a new book this year, it's just an excerpt from a bigger book that's in the works, but I put a lot of time on it and was pleased with the results. It was "free with purchase" which really just meant "free to anyone who looks like they will actually read it". So I gave away maybe 80 copies of that, and sold about 15 of each of my other books. The best part about doing these things for so many years is that I am slowly building up my inventory. At the first comic convention I went to, people would come up to my table and love what I had. So they'd buy it. Great... that's a buck.. Considering how hard it is to get folks to check out your comic, that's a lot of work for one comic. But the next year, if a new customer came by and liked my comic they would usually buy a copy of whatever I had (which was my first book and my new book). Cool that's 2 bucks. Now I have 3 or 4 comics, yo-yos, hats, and crafts... So if someone stopped at my table, they could possibly spend $63 on my art. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and can make the difference between losing money at the expo and breaking even with money to spend on convention food.
Blah blah blah. I don't mean to make it sound like the whole con is money oriented goal, but obviously it's on my mind. In my mind the goals go like this 1. don't lose much money 2. meet new artists and find new books 3. network
The third goal was a new one. I have a new book on the way, and a planned anthology due later this year. The book is bigger than anything I've attempted, and I believe it is also better. Both artistically and entertainment wise. I keep thinking about how good it would be to have a distributor for the final product, or lord knows even a publisher. Someone who can help me make the product better and maybe even pay for a colorist etc. Despite how sharp my sales skills are, networking is not my strongest point. So the networking goal was not a success.
But I got to hang with my friends Merideth, Kraig, and Jeff-Jeff all day and read our new comics.
Oh and if you thought my sales technique was deplorable, at least I wasn't as mean to crowd goers as Merideth, who would literally rest her nuts on her patrons faces.
There are tons of other APE blog dumps out there, here is a good one..
Sunday was a very slow day, so I took the chance to walk around a bit and look for my favorite artists... unfortunately so did they. First stop, Jason Shiga's table to see what he's got up his sleeve this year. He wasn't around, but I checked out his books (bought a copy of Knock Knock and a tiny mini comic) and picked up a copy of the Shiga challenge. The Shiga Challenge is a simple one page set of drawings of 7 polaroids. The game is to figure out what day of the week the pictures are taken on. I walked a bit more then came back to my booth and sold some comics and hats while I tried to figure out the puzzle.
An hour later I tried to catch Shiga again, but missed him, I did bump into other friends of mine though and chatted with the cats at 7000 BC (a Cartoonist Conspiracy cell out of New Mexico) about setting up a C.C. distro from cell to cell. Then I stopped by the Global Hobo camp and asked if the guy who made this awesome mini comic about a boy with a worm in his head had any new books. Then I came back to my booth and solved the Shiga puzzle.
Finally on my third walk around I caught up with Shiga and got a copy of his CD for figuring out the damn puzzle. Shiga is in my mind a cartooning super-hero, and one of the few cats in the entire expo that I actually get dumbfounded around. Everything he does is so inventive and original. His newest book, Bookhunter, takes place in the Bay Area in the 70's. It follows a "Dirty Harry" type library police character that chases overdue book offenders around in these epic scenes. Shiga's most known though for his crazy ass choose your own type books that really fuck with the comics medium. He's capable of taking a concept book (like the choose your own) and actually weave together a story that is so good that it doesn't come across kitschy. In fact, Meanwhile..., the first choose your own of his that I bought, actually involves a time machine which greatly adds to the choose your own adventure. In Meanwhile..., the reader doesn't choose the "correct" ending, but instead just travels down a different path each time. All of the endings have happened and in order for you to do something one time, you have to off previously done something else in another time for it work. Fucking brilliant.
Anyway, I'm a total fanboy and got a pic and autograph of Jason.
Some people comment on how APE gets supposedly less and less comics oriented every year. The reason for that is simple, APE is not at all cheap and if you are an independent publisher with only a few different issues out of your zine/mini comic/whatever, you have to sell a hundred copies of each book just to break even (assuming you are probably selling books that cost you $.75 and you are charging $2). Now alternately, consider someone bringing in plush dolls at $30 each. All they have to do is sell maybe 8 dolls to break even at APE.
From selling at expos like this I know that the hardest part is just getting people to stop at your booth. They added 200 new tables this year, but your average shopper is probably still spending the same amount time at the expo this year as they did the last. Meaning they are dashing around trying not to get distracted until they have found whatever specific vendors they are looking for.
So I started a little experiment... Okay, that's bullshit, I came up with a neat trick to get folks to check out my book. I once worked for a man in Nashville that was the greatest salesman ever. He owned a yo-yo shop called Yo Momma's, whenever he would see a kid around that was sheepishly checking out the shop, he would toss a yo-yo at them. Obviously the kid would catch it, and then finally come over and hang out. What I did was playing with the same basic human nature. If there were lots of people walking, but nobody stopping, I would knock a comic off and wait for someone to kindly pick it up and place it back on the table... Then I had them! "Hey that's a great comic you have there. It's about pancakes and the human spirit." or "Oh cool, you saw my book. It's about overcoming great adversity at a Denny's... With syrup!"
It worked great. People would laugh, then I could get them talking and tell them about our group and when we get together and all that. I got quite a few sales off of the technique, but really it was just something fun to do and way better than just standing around. Most of the time people caught that it was an act right away, which was cool cause we could just laugh about it and I'd say stupid stuff like "Ya, they are flying off the shelf today.".
I had a new book this year, it's just an excerpt from a bigger book that's in the works, but I put a lot of time on it and was pleased with the results. It was "free with purchase" which really just meant "free to anyone who looks like they will actually read it". So I gave away maybe 80 copies of that, and sold about 15 of each of my other books. The best part about doing these things for so many years is that I am slowly building up my inventory. At the first comic convention I went to, people would come up to my table and love what I had. So they'd buy it. Great... that's a buck.. Considering how hard it is to get folks to check out your comic, that's a lot of work for one comic. But the next year, if a new customer came by and liked my comic they would usually buy a copy of whatever I had (which was my first book and my new book). Cool that's 2 bucks. Now I have 3 or 4 comics, yo-yos, hats, and crafts... So if someone stopped at my table, they could possibly spend $63 on my art. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and can make the difference between losing money at the expo and breaking even with money to spend on convention food.
Blah blah blah. I don't mean to make it sound like the whole con is money oriented goal, but obviously it's on my mind. In my mind the goals go like this 1. don't lose much money 2. meet new artists and find new books 3. network
The third goal was a new one. I have a new book on the way, and a planned anthology due later this year. The book is bigger than anything I've attempted, and I believe it is also better. Both artistically and entertainment wise. I keep thinking about how good it would be to have a distributor for the final product, or lord knows even a publisher. Someone who can help me make the product better and maybe even pay for a colorist etc. Despite how sharp my sales skills are, networking is not my strongest point. So the networking goal was not a success.
But I got to hang with my friends Merideth, Kraig, and Jeff-Jeff all day and read our new comics.
Oh and if you thought my sales technique was deplorable, at least I wasn't as mean to crowd goers as Merideth, who would literally rest her nuts on her patrons faces.
There are tons of other APE blog dumps out there, here is a good one..
Labels: alternative press expo cartoonist conspiracy san francisco ape, comics, crafts
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Will work for selvage
While most folks spent Sunday evening squatting upon colorful easter eggs (that's what people do, right?) I was hunched over a sewing machine hella tailoring pants at Self Edge's first ever "Denim Shorts Party & Competition".It started at around 4:30pm. I set up my machine on an old oak office desk and started cutting up the first pair. They belonged to someone who couldn't make it that night (again I'm going to assume that if you wheren't at the party, then you where attempting to hatch rabbit eggs) so he left a pair of really worn in high quality denim pants for me to short-ify. Hemming is a new skill, one that I had barely any experience before last week, so each pair was a learning experience. But since these pants were worn in so nicely, they turned out to be a terrific pair to start on. We cut off about 3 feet of material on each leg. That's a shitload of selvage material.
The jeans turned out great, I did a straight stitch on the bottom, then added a parallel decorative stitch about 1/4" above it. At this point people started to line up with jeans for me to butcher. I would say that the theme of the evening was a cross between decadence and gaudiness. Basically it was a "who has the balls to cut their nice jeans so short that we can literally see them".
Pictures have been posted here!
Of the 4 winners, I had hemmed the top two. The first place pair were not expensive jeans, but they were hemmed insanely short. So short in fact that we made a matching loin clothe for them. But the shorts owner actually took it one step further by actually shaving his legs as I was hemming his jeans.Next time we do a shorts party I'd like to see 4 total sewers and separate prizes for best shorts and best tailoring. That way we'd have an incentive to get more creative with our sewing.
The contest wrapped up around 10pm, that's 5 hours of sewing! For what? For massive money? Fame? Free SEXIH jeans? Nope... basically Kiya is a pal and if it wasn't for him I probably definitely wouldn't live in SF. So I hooked him up with hard labor and he gave me access to all the scrap. Of course that means hella selvage wallets!
Labels: crafts, Self Edge denim raw Samurai blue jeans selvage
Friday, April 06, 2007
Scrap life #5: Selvage Wallets
It's been a while since I've done a Scrap Life project, so I thought it was about time I shared a new one. The Scrap Life projects first started when I took some of the scrap leftover from my Love Life bag and made a wallet out of it, and this project is somewhat similar.
I don't have a lot of Love Life scrap left, so I also used pieces of scrap from high end selvage denim that had been tailored.
The design is based on a wallet that Eric Zo made and gave to me a few years ago. I simplified it a little, but the basic idea of a wallet that folds into itself as show in the pictures was his. When working with the denim I wanted to make sure that the selvage line would be worked into the design.
I had mentioned these denim wallets before, but I've been making some really swell ones lately. Check out this one I made from scraps of leather and Samurai Jeans.
I was really surprised at how easy it was to work with leather. It was the perfect size piece, I didn't even need a special needle, just the same one I've been using on denim. My next goal is to learn how to create a tool to brand my logo onto the leather.
Fuckin' beautiful, aint it? The wallet design itself is largely based on simplicity. The wallets are stripped down to their barest necessity and that helps keep them really thin and comfortable.
The denim is high quality raw denim, as it breaks in it becomes form to fit. Check this out, as the wallet breaks in it gets easier to use and softer and thinner. Closing the lip when tucking in the edge of the wallet can be tough at first, but as it gets used it really breaks in nicely.
Here are some pics of more wallets I made. For these I used bits of mens neckties, upholstry sample swatches, and even some that are all denim. Notice that some of them have selvage lines on the the lip and also have a line at the card holder.
Labels: crafts, scrap life scraplife, Self Edge denim raw Samurai blue jeans selvage
Monday, March 19, 2007
tour wallets
In my previous blog I mentioned that I spent an entire evening (on the edge of the tour) making merch to sell at the shows. I decided to make more wallets out blue jeans to sell because that seems to be what people digging right now.So I made 8 wallets, each one slightly different, and lined them with old neck ties or upholstery fabric. I have to say they look cool, and people are buying them. One guy bought one at our first show in Seattle, then came up to me at our Portland show and pulled it out and paid for a comic book of mine... Selling shit is okay, but seeing people actually use (listen to, read, etc) something that you have made by hand is always a great feeling.
So we finally found out who we are playing with in Chico. The show will be with this local smooth talking rapper named, and I shit you not, Doctor Proper!
Or Doc Prop for short apparently.
Since our SF show was cancelled, we have been told that lots of Bay Area folks will travel to Chico. I hope so, I'd love to see lots of familiar faces.
It's always nice to see lots of friend requests on myspace, especially non-spam ones. Well today I opened up my Drown Radio account and had 18 legit requests... 13 of them were from Portland! I guess that means that I'm not the only person that liked our show. I didn't mention this before, one thing I really liked was that I was starting from zero. Most of the folks at the show knew Beefy and Router, but I only knew one or two people before the show. The crowd is always friendlier if they've heard your stuff before, but by the end of the show I felt like they enjoyed my shit just as much as the rest of the eemcees. We got our band pictures from Ryan in Seattle today and they look fantastic.
Labels: beefy mc router doctor popular doc pop drown radio the mediocre tour, crafts
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Some thoughts on denim
This afternoon, on the yoyoing.com/news forum, Kiya posted this entry about yo-yoers and denim. Here is my reply.
Speaking of denim, I have aquired a bit of selvage scrap that I'll be experimenting with. Tonight, at our weekly crafting group, I'm going to try to make some wallets. While working with denim can be difficult to start with, this material is raw denim, so I'm expecting even more difficulty to overcome. On top of that, I want to come up with a design that will show off the selvage lines.
Labels: crafts, denim yo-yo selvage SCOW
Monday, February 12, 2007
Dr. Fancy Pants
I have written before about my buddy Kiya's high end denim store Self Edge, here in the Mission.
On the weekends I ocassionally hang out in Self Edge to yo-yo with Kiya and listen to him talk to customers about the characteristics of really expensive raw denim pants from Japan. One of the things that really struck a chord with me, was the notion of wearing in the pants to fit the owner.
Off the shelf, raw denim pants are often characterized by thick/starchy feel. Denim freaks wear the pants for weeks before the pants start to break in. I guess each pair could be seen as a constant work in progress, never quite broken in, just better with each wear.
Last weekend I started to think about my upcoming tour in March and the thought popped up that a week and a half of touring would be a great way to get intimate with a pair of jeans. More thoughts appeared like "one pair of jeans would really make packing easier" and "every time I wear them I'd remember the tour that I broke them in on".
The following monday I couldn't take it anymore, so I went down to Self Edge with Shannon and we bought a pair of $290 selvage jeans. We picked out a pair of Samurai Jeans. I guess the idea of wearing some really stiff tight jeans on a tour didn't sound as good after a bit, so I'm starting the process now.
Like I said it's probably going to take a while before the pants get comfy, but as you wear them the pants really shape to your body. After wearing them for a full day, the pants were still really crunchy. In fact, when I took them off my hot bod they totally retained my body's shape. So much so that they could stand upright completely by themselves!After a few days I tried to get them to stand upright again, but they would keep crumbling at the knee. It was glorious! They were breaking in.
After breaking in the pants for a week, I will soak the pants in water (Evian? Just kidding.) for a half hour which will make them shrink a whole bunch. Then I'll wear them in another week before bringing them back to Kiya's place to get hemmed. The pants are really long right now, so I expect that even after soaking them I'll have a bunch of material to remove... hopefully enough to make something really really cool. A wallet. Or perhaps another denim hat?
Labels: crafts, Self Edge denim raw Samurai blue jeans selvage
Monday, November 27, 2006
Blue Jean Hats by SNSO
A week ago my buddy Kiya had a grand opening party for his new store Self Edge. Self Edge is a high end denim store, the name is derived from the term selvage.I had been feeling like I had been lagging behind in crafts, so I decided to challenge myself to a new project for the party. I had found a nice pair of blue jeans on my doorstep, so using my design for my Fat Tie Hats, I made some Blue Jean Hats.
The denim was fantastic to work with, especially after working with ties for so long. I used the pocket lining for the inside of the hat and the linen under the brim. On one hat I used the coin pocket from the pants. On the other hat I added some of the belt loops from the pants and added a belt.
Although cutting the fabric patterns was easy, I had to relearn my stitching. I had good needles for denim, but the thread just didn't seem to being pulling through right. After a while I got the hang of it though. I did the initial stitches with a darker thread that wouldn't show up on the material, then after the hat was almost fully constructed I added the golden thread.
Check out the cool gold denim stitches, in particular around the brim where the parallel line split. I usually adorn my hats with a beautifully embroidered Something New Something Old logo, but being that denim is hard enough to work with as is, I would like to come up with a different way to emblazon my logo on these hats.
Even though there was plenty of life to the material, when I finished the hats I thought they looked a little to dull and not aged enough so I distressed them myself using a nail file. I focused at any areas where aging might natural occur and along seams. That faded areas really gave a higher contrast to the material and helped "define" the form of the hats. I might write a little piece about how to distress denim next week if people are interested.
Labels: crafts
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
A day without a pirate...
I spent most of the day at 826 Valencia yesterday, having a good time and getting stuff done. In the morning I illustrated a children's story involving rocketships, martians, and a 100 foot giant super computer with spikes named Gina. (Yes I did remember to take my name tag off.)
I came back to 826 later that evening for our pirate craft night event. There where about 20 people there, making peg legs, eye patches, and pirate hooks. Good times.
I brought my sewing machine and showed the basics of pirate patch upholstery, and of course I brought plenty of scrap tie fabrics. We made 15 "tie patches" that I believe the store will sell for $10 each. I'm really happy with my embroidered ones, but some of the other ones turned out specatucalarly.
I came back to 826 later that evening for our pirate craft night event. There where about 20 people there, making peg legs, eye patches, and pirate hooks. Good times.
I brought my sewing machine and showed the basics of pirate patch upholstery, and of course I brought plenty of scrap tie fabrics. We made 15 "tie patches" that I believe the store will sell for $10 each. I'm really happy with my embroidered ones, but some of the other ones turned out specatucalarly.
Labels: crafts
Monday, November 13, 2006
Fat Tie Hats by SNSO
Thanks for checking out my site. Please note that this blog has moved to www.DocPop.org. So please come over to the new site to see my new crafts, or you can find the "Fat Tie Hats" entry here.
I'm sure a lot of ya'll remember the blogs I wrote many months ago about John and Fony Hats. John's work really got me into hats (go figure, a middle aged balding guy getting into men's head wear...), but shortly after John and I first met he had to leave town for a while. Many months passed without being able to get in touch with him and people were contacting me about where to get cool hats in the city so I decided to try my hand making hats.
I loved John's hats, but of course I wanted to do something entirely different than what he made, so I drew up some patterns and got to work. I knew from the start I wanted to make the hats out of recycled clothes and I've always had a penchant for cravats, so making Fat Tie Hats was the obvious choice.
A lot of folks tend to be surprised that I can get an entire hat out of just one tie, but I've been re-making ties enough to know that when you open the seam on one, there is a lot of material inside. Still, I've gotta work the patterns pretty efficiently to get a tie out.
So obviously the front of the tie is the main fabric I use, but I also try to use the inside lining of the tie (usually a solid color thin polyester) as the lining underneath the bill of my hat.
For the size adjuster on the back of the hat, I use the original tag off of the tie. This solved a few problems and more importantly looks cool as hell. Some of the tags on old ties are gorgeous and deserve more attention for their eye for detail.
I've scratched my older production moniker of Better Sleep, and have decided to work my crafts under the name SNSO (for Something New Something Old).
A couple of local stores will be carrying these hats, but for now you can only either get them through me directly or Miranda's shop on 14th and Valencia (in San Francisco). Miranda also worked on our costumes for Master Of Champions, she's the bomb. I imagine these would make a killer Father's Day gift..
Here are some gratuitous pictures of some of the work done so far. Notice that sexy embroidery along the sides? No, I don't have a programmable machine. These where all down freehand on my [girlfriend's] Necchi. As part of my philosophy of working with as much of the tie as possible, I like to try to work the embroidery into the existing patterns. The red hat is a pretty decent example of that:
Ties are for nerds
My booth at the Lower Haight Street Fair. Shirts, comics, cds, and now hats! At the end of the day one dude came by and bought these two beauties and one more not pictured.
Members of SCOW (Sewing Crafting On Wednesday) model. Rachel, Matt, Bethanne, and Shan.
I'm sure a lot of ya'll remember the blogs I wrote many months ago about John and Fony Hats. John's work really got me into hats (go figure, a middle aged balding guy getting into men's head wear...), but shortly after John and I first met he had to leave town for a while. Many months passed without being able to get in touch with him and people were contacting me about where to get cool hats in the city so I decided to try my hand making hats.
I loved John's hats, but of course I wanted to do something entirely different than what he made, so I drew up some patterns and got to work. I knew from the start I wanted to make the hats out of recycled clothes and I've always had a penchant for cravats, so making Fat Tie Hats was the obvious choice.
A lot of folks tend to be surprised that I can get an entire hat out of just one tie, but I've been re-making ties enough to know that when you open the seam on one, there is a lot of material inside. Still, I've gotta work the patterns pretty efficiently to get a tie out.
So obviously the front of the tie is the main fabric I use, but I also try to use the inside lining of the tie (usually a solid color thin polyester) as the lining underneath the bill of my hat.
For the size adjuster on the back of the hat, I use the original tag off of the tie. This solved a few problems and more importantly looks cool as hell. Some of the tags on old ties are gorgeous and deserve more attention for their eye for detail.
I've scratched my older production moniker of Better Sleep, and have decided to work my crafts under the name SNSO (for Something New Something Old).
A couple of local stores will be carrying these hats, but for now you can only either get them through me directly or Miranda's shop on 14th and Valencia (in San Francisco). Miranda also worked on our costumes for Master Of Champions, she's the bomb. I imagine these would make a killer Father's Day gift..
Here are some gratuitous pictures of some of the work done so far. Notice that sexy embroidery along the sides? No, I don't have a programmable machine. These where all down freehand on my [girlfriend's] Necchi. As part of my philosophy of working with as much of the tie as possible, I like to try to work the embroidery into the existing patterns. The red hat is a pretty decent example of that:
Ties are for nerds
My booth at the Lower Haight Street Fair. Shirts, comics, cds, and now hats! At the end of the day one dude came by and bought these two beauties and one more not pictured.
Members of SCOW (Sewing Crafting On Wednesday) model. Rachel, Matt, Bethanne, and Shan.Labels: crafts
