Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Shoelace Mania!
I was looking for info on boots laces when I stumbled upon Ian's Shoelace Site. Pictured above is the ladder lacing method (not my boots, though I wish they were). An almost infinite number of ways to lace shoes.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
WWI Austro-Hungarian Canteens
Yes, plural - it's a genre. Uniform wasn't so uniform in World War I, so you get a lot of ad hoc design. This manifests itself quite interestingly in Austro-Hungarian canteen design.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
A Fisherman Knits
In working on my gansey project, I did a lot of research and became a dilettante in the area of gansey knitting. Then I stumbled on this guy and realized I know nothing about ganseys. So much information on a lost art.Tuesday, May 12, 2009
French Chef's Jacket
I found this vintage double breasted chef's jacket from France circa 1950's while in Los Angeles for the weekend. The fabric is very stiff and starchy - it appears to be a heavy weight houndstooth oxford broadcloth that has been garment dyed in indigo. The high neck drop and the number of buttons reminded me of the peacoats worn by a Scottish herring boat crew that I had referenced for my gansey knitting project, and the starchy indigo fabric and patch pockets had a similar feel to a Haversack tunic.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Cables, Diamonds, and Herringbones
It may not seem like the best season to talk about British fisherman's ganseys, but I just finished my first sweater.
Here's a close up:
I consulted Gladys Thompson's Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys and Arans, and Sabine Domnick's Cables, Diamonds, Herringbone for this project - both books feature great archival photos of these amazing, traditional British fishermen sweaters. I knitted in the round - a method that is not only the traditional way of knitting these sweaters, but also much easier than expected; and made my own pattern by first knitting a gauge swatch from the yarn I intended to use, calculating how many stitches around my sweater would need to be, then doing a lot of math to figure out a pattern that would have a well-balanced and aesthetically pleasing combination of cables, diamonds and herringbones. Big thanks to the fine folks at The Yarn Tree in W'burg, where I was living when I started this project, for all their help and free advise.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The Ten Yen Project
I have a problem with rivets on jeans that aren't a) copper, and b) real burr rivets. These days, I pretty much only wear Levi's 501 jeans. I'm a big fan of the Levi's LVC 1947 501xx repros, which have real burr rivets, but I also dig the cheap off-the-rack 501's, which I like to alter to fit more like Dior Hommes (the lack of selvage denim being a plus in that I don't hesitate ripping open the side seam and taking an inch-and-a-half off the leg opening). Besides altering the fit of 501's, I also rip out the fake press-on rivets and replace them with real burr rivets. Three or four years ago, I got a pair of APC New Cure jeans because I dug the fit. I hated the nickel rivets, however. I wore them on a trip to Japan and upon returning, took the pocketful of copper ten yen coins I had accumulated and turned them into burrs to rivet them in place of the bad nickel rivets. This involved chucking them in a metal lathe and milling them down to around 3/8" diameter. Here's a few pics.
I posted this project on superfuture several years ago.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
From the Archives
I haven't touched my Hasselblad, rolls of Tri-X, or flickr for a while. Here's a nod to that.
Mulhouse and Schlumberger
Late 19th Century French designs for textiles prints. The third seems to be Schlumberger. I don't know about the other two, but maybe they're Mulhouse.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
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