Yes, I do still exist. And I've been making leather masks.

 So, it's been three years since I've posted anything on this blog.  That's just because I have a hard time remembering to post things on the blog.  However - I've been making a bunch of leather masks lately, and this is a good place to collect a bunch of photos of them in one place. 

Without further ado, picspam of masks!  If I remember, I'll do a longer step-by-step of a few of them.  I did document the floral plague doctor and rainbow unicorn masks very thoroughly, and I'm working on a fall leaves design now that I've got progress photos of.

Scandanavian Turnshoes - a quickie

I backed the kickstarter for Jason Hovatter's instructional DVD to make scandanavian turnshoes.  (DVD is also available on Amazon.)

It was a quick project, and he says it all so much better, but here's a couple of pictures of the shoes I made following the instructions on the DVD:

Pretty comfortable, but I should add another layer of the goop sole for more cushioning.  The DVD is great - really easy to follow all the steps, and these went pretty quick.

Shoe School! Laughing Crowe and Internal Stitchdown

Finally - another shoe post!

In late April, I made it to Portland to study with Jason Hovatter at Laughing Crowe.  Jason does a variety of non-lasted shoe techniques, and is a real innovator and super nice guy.  I met him at the footwear makers' symposium last June, and was very excited to take his class.  Lucky me, nobody else signed up for that session, so I got a *private* class!

This is his own construction method, that he invented. Sort of like a stitchdown, it turns the upper to the inside, instead of the outside.  Here's what we did in class....

Casting the foot in duct tape, and drawing the design:

Making patterns: 

Cutting the insole and making channels for the stitching, and punching the stitchig holes themselves

: 

Cutting, skiving, punching and sewing the uppers; adding reinforcement where needed:

Stitching the uppers to the insole:

At this point, the shoes were soaked in water and given some vigorous shaping, and put in a dehydrator to dry back out.  Then, I added a layer of foam, for cushion, and a purchased sole.  Those were then trimmed, and laces added.

These are pretty comfortable.  I think there's still room for tinkering, to get the super comfy walking shoe I'm looking for in the long run.  But these are a huge step in that direction!

Catching up - Beaded Collar Dress

I haven't posted in *forever*, largely because a home remodel project and a convention took over my free time for much of the last year.  However, I did make a dress:

It all started with a piece of fabric I didn't buy enough of on a trip to New York:

I only bought a yard and a half, although, it is very wide.  So to make that tiny bit of fabric into a dress that would fit me, I made a wide, beaded collar to take up some space.  I started with a mockup in muslin: 

Drew the pattern for the collar on paper, cut it out of complementary fabric, and attached fusible interfacing to the back side: 

I made good use of the temporary fabric pencils to draw the design onto the fabric, and beaded it.  This was the first bead embroidery I'd ever done.  I attended a workshop at Westercon given by Theresa Halbert, and was inspired:

Then it was just a question of sewing up the dress with the collar.  There is almost no scrap fabric on this dress - it's not particularly flattering, but it's very comfortable.  

Cork!

Bookmarking this link here, for the future:

Jelinek Cork - Shoe Wedges

They also sell blocks of cork, granulated cork, cork sheets....  with an online store.

Tolkien-Inspired Briefcase

Kevin's Christmas present, given to him in early summer (oops!) was a new briefcase for work.  The nice one he got after law school was stolen out of his car several years ago, and Tandy had this kit on sale just before the holidays.

Being the giant Tolkien nerds that we are, and given my map fetish, I wanted to cover it with maps of Middle Earth.  Here's how I did that. 

First, draw out the designs you want on paper, actual size (and shape):

Then, case (use a sponge to dampen) the leather.  Lay the paper design on top, and trace (hard) with a stylus.  In this case, yeah - that's a *lot* of tracing.

I really struggled with the dye.  I wanted the design to pop out much more than it did.  As it is, you have to get close to see that it's covered with maps.  I'm still looking for a better solution to this problem. 

Then, it was just a question of following the instructions that came with the kit.  Sewing it all together, adding the provided hardware...  Not having to design it from the ground up was a luxury, but one I would only take advantage of if the price was right.  In this case, it was - the sale price was about half the standard retail price. 

Either way, Kevin loves his new briefcase, and has been using it for work all summer.