Insert Coin Here

Leo and I have been involved in creating work for a great project run by Nella and Kim from Craft Vic. Titled 'Insert Coin Here', over 60 artist/designer/creative types were commissioned to make 10 'fashion objects' to fit into capsules for 2 gorgeous old-school-red-spiral-action vending machines.

Here are my trinkets, the Carnivale Keychains, made of leather tassles, wooden beads and nickel hardware.

Capsules awaiting their innards, it was quite an assembly line filling them all.


Leo said that the finished capsules look like baby alligators ready to hatch from an egg!

The show is a travelling feast, beginning at Craft Vic next week:
Mon 1 March - Sat 6 March Craft Victoria: 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Tue 8 March - Sat 13 March Captains of Industry: Level 1, 2 Somerset Place, Melbourne (off Little Bourke Street)
Sun 14 March - Sun 21 March (Fashion Week) Alice Euphemia: Shop 6, Cathedral Arcade, 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Mon 22 March - Wed 31 March The Thousands Shop: Level 6, Curtin House, 252 Swanston Street, Melbourne

There will be a launch party held on the 12th, I'll let you know about that in the next week.
So get your $2 coins ready people, there are over 600 capsules to be had!
Have a look at the project blog for sneak peeks at other folks' work.

Listening to : M.I.A. - Bingo Leo's favourite song of late, he requests that it be turned up LOUD in the car

NSW Leather

All these beauties are sheep hides, new and exciting at my favourite leather supplier, NSW Leather 107 Sackville St in Collingwood.

Most of these hides have been finished a bit thicker than the usual sheep skins, which can be rather thin and fragile, but beautifully soft. These new hides have a lot more body, and are more robust, here's hoping that they will make good shoe uppers, as the selection of colours and finishes is too good to be true.

I saw them last week when I went in for some kid leather, I deliberately didn't buy any of these new ones, but I thought about them all weekend and succumbed early Monday morn. The decision of what to buy was limited to my favourite colours: a beautiful red, patent/pull-up navy, soft, downy dark navy, and a fabulous Eurotrash silvery reptile print, mmmmmm. I discreetly laid my cheek on some of them as they are so peachy, I would like pillows made from them.

The colours are divine, the price is amazing at $2.89 per square foot, and I urge you all to go and drool over them metaphorically.

Yes I did

Today I was grumpy, cross, seething even. I took my vengeance out on a box of trashy Cadbury Roses. Yes I did. Even managed to enjoy some of them, but not the Lemon Cheesecake one, blech!


Pene, here's the finished strap. I've just tacked the upper on here, still waiting for the insole to dry before I officially last it.


Bonita!

I'm happy to report that my mood was lifted by
Listening to: Gilberto Gil - Roda, he's too darn cheerful in this 1967 version of such a fab tune.

Making straps

Straps are cut, edges skived (this means that they are beveled to a fine edge, so that when folded there's not a huge ridge showing through) with my extra sharp knife, and my fold line is marked.

I always like to draw in my fold line, instead of doing it by eye. Eyes can be deceiving, and there's nothing worse than having glued and folded an edge, only to realise that it's wonky and has to be done again.

Straps have been glued, and I'm folding the edges to the line with my lovely little rounded awl. It's one of my favourite tools.

Once the edges have been folded over I hammer them down with this weird looking little hammer.

Fitting the teensy buckles onto the straps. I then line them and stitch the edges.

Aforementioned strap stitching on my beloved leather machine.
Obviously the line has to be perfectly straight. I used to look at the stitches, but now I watch the gap between the edge of the wheel and the edge of the work, and I know that if I keep that distance even then the stitches will be too.

After stitching I trim the lining off, and give the straps another hammer so that the stitches sit flat.

Tango

Helen is my awesomely high-achieving capoeirista pal.
She is super tall, and has long, elegant size 11 feet.
Tango is one of her extra-curricular activities and we are underway with a pair of custom made shoes for her.
It's good for her to have a shoemaking friend.

Helen's last all taped up, with basic pattern features drawn onto the masking tape. All shoes begin this way.

The tape has come off the last and has been made into a paper pattern, with all the different pieces cut, allowances added etc.

Upper pieces have been cut, skived, edges folded, sections assembled, and finally stitched together. I love this part, it's a big 3D jigsaw.

Ode to my knife

Monday morning I sat down in the studio to do some work with my knife.
It was as blunt as a spoon and was really shitting me, after 5 mins of wrestling with it I hastily sharpened it on my stone.
Alas, I gave it a huge burr, and all the work I tried with it after that was even worse.

I asked myself how I could possibly call myself a shoemaker if I didn't have a well-sharpened knife? What was I playing at?

So after a moment's thought, I went back to the stone and methodically sharpened it for about 20 mins. First I took off the rounded shoulder which my slack sharpening had created. Then I worked on getting a nice straight edge on the blade. The rough side of the stone was swapped for the smooth side, then I took off the burr and lovingly cleaned it up on my leather strop.

Holy Smokes, this was a new knife! It's the sharpest and straightest bastard of a knife that I have ever used.

And I did it myself, with a bit of time, attention and elbow grease. It's a joyful thing to be able to restore my favourite hand tool to its glorious rightful state. Hurrah for paying attention to my teachers when they stressed how important knife sharpening was.

How about your tools/machines/apparatus? Do you need to maintain them but often forget/can't be arsed/never found out how? How good does it feel to get them to their optimal state? Yes indeed. That's what I'm talking about.

Listening to: Mack the Knife - Dinah Shore and Pearl Bailey - gorgeous!

Queda de rins

Damn queda de rins.
It's portuguese and means 'fall on kidney', which is a capoeira move appropriated by the breakdance scene. I used to love queda de rins, especially on the right hand side as my right arm is a lot stronger.

Here's me doing a version of it back in the day when I was a b-girl. All the weight is on the right hand/wrist which is tucked into your kidney area, hence fall on kidney.


BUT

During the first part of the year my fabulous teacher Lorem got us doing queda de rins flips, where the legs flip over from the front to the back, and since then my wrist has been rather unhappy. A strange design the old wrist; lots of little bones nestled in together with tendons and twisting forearm bones - it's a bit of an intersection.

In my case the intersection is jammed, and I've been having a lot of pain lately, which is bad because my right hand is essentially my shoe making hand. Even though I am left handed, I'm a bit of an ambidextrous gal, and my left hand is only really used for writing. My right has always been stronger, and I use it for everything else.

This week I'm finally tackling some tango shoes for my pal Helen, and so far I can't believe how much everything hurts! Hand-skiving - ouch, using pincers - ouch, hammering - ouch, also my evening pastime, beloved crochet - ouch. Glad I'm not lasting 8 pairs of shoes per day. Can't take anti-inflammatories when pregnant either.

So queda de rins, I used to love you, but now I'm not sure that I could ever do one again. This ol' wrist of mine can't take the weight. Must be getting old.....boo hoo!

Listening to: Boa Voz - Porque Sera

Mr McQueen

It's too terrible to think that such a creative genius will no longer be astounding us with his work. So many of my favourite fashion moments came from this man, who started as a tailoring apprentice at the age of 16, went on to head the Givenchy team, and finally stamped his own name firmly into the annals of British design.

His shows were performance art: his aesthetics shocked, challenged and had us enthralled. While many designers follow trends, Mr McQueen was a true visionary, from beginning to end.

I am both sad and angered by his death, suicide makes me very cross. It seems that all the accolades in the world were not enough to sustain the vitality which he seemed to have in spades.

Hand carved prosthetic legs for Aimee Mullins, 1999

Givenchy Haute Couture by Alexander McQueen


'Voss' collection, Red feathers and glass microscope slides, 2001


Autumn/Winter 2006


Autumn/Winter, 2008


'Plato's Atlantis', 2009

My day

I am such a fan of birthdays, poor Sam is still getting used to my love of fanfare, trumpets, banners, cake, presents, flowers and general hoo ha.

So yesterday was meine geburtstag, and this is how things rolled.

Cake for breakfast, fruit tarts are the cake du jour for me. Leo also approves, especially for breakfast before kinder.

My random stamp friend Karen in Ontario, Canada sent another lot to my post office box, that's a present in itself! Karen works at Carleton University in the International applications office I think, anyways she sends me stamps a few times a year and they are always from countries which are under-represented in my collection. This installment includes Ghana, Kenya, Brazil, Hawaii, and of course a few from Canada.

My sister knows me too well, she brought Lindor balls over for afternoon tea. Did you know that there is a Lindt shop in Collins St? Me neither. Did you know that the brown ones are peanut butter, the blue ones cookies and cream? Me neither, though we are well acquainted now. Methinks Lindt are trying to crack the American market with these new versions. Good luck to them!

To be honest I have been a bit unwell, Leo has handily shared his virus with me and it feels like a cross between hayfever and tonsilitis. It's such a rip off to have these symptoms during 35 degree heat.

So much of yesterday was spent on the couch watching the cricket (pathetic effort from the Windies, I know), blowing my nose and finishing my crocheted cushion cover, using some cones of metallic yarn from the Yarn Barn. I realise that instead of making 9 squares per side, I could have just made one grande square per side. Next time.

Finally finished last night while watching Mr McCloud on his Grand Tour. Sam and I travelled to Venice and Florence years ago, and seeing Mr McCloud revisit those amazing buildings reaffirmed my love of Renaissance art and architecture. Many thanks to Mr Caskey who was my art teacher in high school.

I also managed to squeeze in delicious scones at Paula's for morning tea, phalaenopsis orchids from Mum, Tito Puente from Sam, but I really missed my Leo who was out all day, he knows how to celebrate and without him it felt a bit quiet.

Listening to: Tito Puente, his daughter Millie, and the Poncho Sanchez Orchestra

Hyperventilating

I'm not in the habit of re-blogging items pilfered from other sites, but this one has me gasping for breath. The divine Nikki Gabriel has alerted her readers that The Endless Garment exhibition opens next Friday at RMIT Gallery.

Featuring some mighty fine talent in the world of knitwear, including Issey Miyake, Sandra Backlund, Walter Van Beirendonck, Cooperative Designs, Mark Fast, Yoshiki Hishinuma, Saverio Palatella, Freddie Robins, Sibling....

Have to say it again - SANDRA BACKLUND

I've posted about her work before, let me refresh your memory: