Bracelets and Buttonholes

I've had a recent obsession with making a sturdy, comfortable, good-looking bracelet. Or wristband, if wearing a bracelet would offend your masculinity. After some dreadful attempts at going about this task, I've finally reached a basic design that I can live with.

Left: The old version. Right: The new, less-shitty version.

Other than the leather accent being improperly sized and the stitching being a little bit shoddy (the machine's fault, not mine. I swear), this one turned out significantly better.

I've added a lining to the bottom so that it feels softer on the wrist, and it also gives me the opportunity to mess with different patterns and colors to complement the actual body of the wristband.

Buttonholes have also been a fun thing to learn to do. I don't have a fancy machine that does it automatically for me, so I had to learn to do it the old-fashioned way.

Notice the failtastic one on the right, and how they clean up as time went on. Yay! Improvement!

I've been getting a surprising number of requests for these things, so once I really figure out what I'm doing, I believe that I'll be selling these in a variety of designs, colors, fabrics, and patterns. Keep an eye out.

Bow ties!

I must say that I'm a huge fan of bow ties. They add a bit of dandy to my life that creates a sense of deeply enjoyable playfulness. Because there is NO way I could take myself seriously in a pink and white striped bow tie. The only issue is, a bow tie and a shirt without any sort of jacket, sweater, or waistcoat creates a large swath of fabric on one's torso that can seem a bit unbalanced.

But I digress. These bow ties were quite simple to make once I drafted the patterns for them. The lengths and widths are modeled after a piece that I picked up in a vintage store in New Orleans last summer - nice and slim with wonderful proportions. There's a lot that can be done with the lines of a bow tie as they converge from two sides onto a central point, so patterned pieces end up looking particularly interesting.

Also, there's something incredibly satisfying about coming home after a long day out and undoing a bow tie, letting it hang loosely to either side of one's neck. It's a bit therapeutic... for me anyways.

On my to-do list: Reversible and split pattern bow ties!

Tie your tie.

To start off - ties are endlessly strange to me. Most menswear (especially on the more traditional side) espouses form and function being intertwined, and yet ties survive without having ANY purpose other than being aesthetically pleasing. They sure as hell won't keep you warm, but I guess they're good for strangling someone.

I made these ties based off of one that a friend gave me from The Hill-side. The brand makes beautiful products but, at $88 per tie, is woefully outside of my price range. Thankfully, they're pretty simple to make, so I reverse-engineered mine and made a few more (with a twist or two, of course).

One is made from the reverse side of some 6 oz raw indigo denim, which ends up looking a bit like chambray. It has a slightly rounded, unfinished edge that gives it an interesting fraying. The other is an Italian linen with the same denim on the back blade, creating a two-tone tie. They're lined with a cotton muslin to give the tie knot some heft (because no one likes a wimpy tie knot).

The keeper and label (which are heavy enough to help with the drape of the tie) are made of leather. The sewn design is pretty much meaningless, but I had just come from the lovely Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA and had his style on my mind. It showed through just a touch.

This was my first experiment with drafting my own pattern and came out reasonably well, I think. Looking forward to expanding my collection with ties made from lots of interesting fabrics.