A Tour of the Workshop

I have some people who contact me about the equipment I use, so I wanted to do a couple of posts about my workshop and equipment. I am lucky enough to have a dedicated space to work. For years I just worked in the living room of an apartment, which meant everything had to be taken out and put away every time I used it. It's much better now that I have a place to get messy and creative, and not in the middle of the living room. I'm sure my wife agrees... right honey?

Here's my workshop on a typical Saturday morning. I've got great natural light coming in through the window, and lots of places to lay out patterns and leather. This is my happy place. 

The studio is divided into three areas: layout, sewing and pounding (I'll explain that last one in a minute...). 

You can see from the diagram below, it's similar to a kitchen layout, with a work triangle formed by the three most commonly performed tasks. With my projects it usually goes: cut, sew, pound - repeat. The leather is laid out and the pattern traced on the main table. The pieces are cut out and clipped together for sewing. Then, the seams are glued and flattened with a mallet (pounded), before moving on to the next part. 

Most of my sewing is done on my workhorse: an Artisan 1797-AB leather sewing machine. It's a compound-feed walking foot machine with reverse-stitching capability and a beefy servo motor. I can do slow, careful work with it, and it can handle light to medium-weight leather. I absolutely love this machine!!

 The other machine in the shop is a 2618-1B, a heavier cylinder-bed machine also from Artisan. I call her "The Beast". It allows me to sew inside closed-end shapes like bags or hoods, and also to handle topstitching where the arm of a sleeve attaches to the body. I have been struggling with the machine because it has a tendency to break needles, but hopefully the latest service I had performed will fix the problem. With any new machine it is hard to tell if the machine itself is the problem, or if it's just because I don't know how to use it yet (which is entirely possible). I may have been spoiled by the ease-of-use of my other Artisan machine... This machine has an even more powerful motor that would easily sew through your finger. I definitely treat her with respect!

 This is an area I call the pounding station. I have a heavy granite plate that I use as a surface to pound flat seams. It also sits under the tooling pad I have when using punches to provide a solid, stable surface. Also, there's a nice little area to cut pattens and parts if needed. To the right of the granite block is my Weaver "Little Wonder" rivet-setting machine, bolted to the workbench. 

 I end up using the space between the rafters for leather storage, in rolls and tubes. Also, paper for design layouts and pattern making. 

 

My main work surface is a 48 by 36 inch table I made with wheels so it could be moved around. This is supplemented by an extension on sawhorses to take the whole width of the work surface to 96" or 8-feet wide. When working with a full hide or a side, you need that much space to lay it out flat. I also use a separate 18" by 96" piece of plywood to extend the surface area if needed. Even with the extension (a full 54 by 96-inch table top), a 55 square-foot full hide will overlap the work surface a bit on the sides.

Under my wheeled table I have room for storage, which is where the thread and leather dyes live. 

 I have quite a few large patterns, which get stored in another cabinet I made. 

 My table saw gets pressed into service as a leather holding area. (It's under the pile...)

 I keep my smaller pattens in 10x13 envelopes, dated and labeled...

...and these go in a drawer inside the cabinet as well.

That's about it for the studio tour today. Thanks for visiting... Coming up next time: Tools!

Elizabeth Andrews vintage photos...?

I finished a hood project a few weeks ago for Elizabeth Andrews (check out her clips4sale site here), and she recently sent me a few photos so I could check the fit. Oh boy, I love getting emails like this! 

Now she is a beautiful girl, with these great big brown eyes - just perfectly made for the open-face hood. Add to that the fact that she's wearing a skin-tight latex catsuit, a serious bondage corset, and her arms are strapped into a tight armbinder... Just absolute wow! 

It struck me that the photos could have come from another era, possibly many years ago - so I decided to play around with them in photoshop a little bit to give them a soft-edge vintage feel. I imagined I found them hidden inside an old box or case that I'd purchased at the flea market or an antique store. As if I could be that lucky.

I had some fun with it, and Elizabeth: I hope you don't mind! Thanks for letting me share the awesome pix...

Strap Hood - First try...

This is the third of the "special" hoods I've been working on for Karen Hsiao and our upcoming show in Tokyo at Vanilla Gallery. With the Pony and Asylum hood, this strappy number is intended to push the boundaries of what I can do, and to try something I have never done before. 

Initially the straps were going to be further apart, but as soon as I started wrapping the 3 straps around the neck I knew I had to go with smaller spaces between them.

My working method was to wrap the straps around the form and hold them in place with tape, then remove it when I was happy with the layout and sew the straps down. Unfortunately, the tape didn't hold once I removed it from the form, and as I was sewing the straps shifted and moved out of place. I had to rip the stitches and start over. 

On my second attempt, I used double-sided seam tape in addition to the blue painter's tape to hold the straps in position. I also didn't put as much stress on the piece while I put it through the sewing machine. Finally, I did one set of stitches at a time, re-placing it on the form between each set. This was time-consuming, but it worked. Now I know what to do next time. 

I will be taking another crack at this one, as I also messed up the position of the straps a little bit. It is actually a single strap that goes from the neck on one side, up and over the head, around the chin, and back up and over to the other side. If they were further back, as they were supposed to be, the straps at the top of the head would lay flatter. This also would make room for one additional strap between the first two.

Next time it will be a little closer to perfect...

Design sketch templates...

I just came up with some female figure templates to help me when I'm doing initial design sketches. These outline forms help me by letting me concentrate on the design itself rather than things like getting the anatomy right, and drawing out the head, torso, arms and legs every time.  

I did a front and rear view, so I could show the back side of the design as well. 

I was trying to strike a balance in the drawing between including detail, but not overpowering the sketch that is done on top of it. And I had to make her Asian-looking (of course!).

The best part is I can print a bunch of these out, and always have them handy for jotting down ideas when inspiration strikes - before the idea goes away.  

I can already think of a few variations I want to do (arms behind back, hair up in pony-tail, etc...), but for now, this is a good beginning. I like the way these make me want to a lot of design variations - it makes me want to grab a pencil and play, and just let my imagination run wild...

Asylum hood - complete!

The asylum hood with it's final dye job. It's got an antique, almost steam-punk look - quite a departure from my normal style... 

Asylum Hood - progress

Another recent creation for Karen's Black Cherries project: the Asylum hood. It's a departure from the kind of design I normally do, which tends to be fetish oriented and clean-lined. This is more about getting an institutional look, like something you might find in an insane asylum of your nightmares (or dreams, I suppose...).  

The design sketch called out the most unique feature of this hood: a chin piece that comes down the neck and attaches at the sides with ball-post connectors. It's the first project where I've used these connectors, and they worked out really well. 

The shape of the pieces changed from the sketch a bit, as I tried to let the leather tell me what it wanted to do. Rather than having a gap between the neck piece and the hood for example, it made sense to tuck in behind the rear neck instead.

Normally there is a centerline in the front panel of this hood, but I knew I wanted there to be a strap holding the blindfold in place - so I made that front half of the hood all in one piece. This allowed me to put that ball-post right in the middle. 

 These pieces were all modeled using veg-tan leather and the wet-casting technique. It gives you the ability to shape and mold the leather, and when it dries it becomes rigid and keeps the shape very well.

 I was particularly happy to get the whole neck and chin contour all in one piece. It was a complex shape, but I managed to get the leather to conform pretty closely on the first try - woo-hoo!

 After doing test fits, and getting all the ball posts set and holes punched, we are ready to dye the leather.

Pony Hood with Harness

Hello everyone! I've been super busy lately working on new projects for Karen Hsiao's Black Cherries series. I just completed a Pony Hood for her, which is based on the molded-leather hoods I did a few months ago. These are created out of wet-cast veg-tanned leather, using my wood female hood form as a foundation to build the shape. 

This takes the design to a whole new level, with added straps and integrated O-rings that are riveted to the front of the mask where the bit would normally go. Instead of pulling the reins against her mouth, this puts the pressure on the entire hood - so you can really tug on them!  (Oh, the poor slavegirl/model who has to wear it!) 

I loved the thought of the straps crossing over the blank featureless face. There are actually tiny holes near the nose, so this can be worn. We wanted to keep the holes minimal, so as not to take away from the clean look. 

There's a pony-tail opening at the top rear, so you can have the long hair flowing out and down the back or the front of the mask. This looks incredibly hot...

The ears were a challenge to get right - at first the shape I came up with looked like a bunny rabbit. Fortunately Karen came up with a great shape, and it worked perfectly on the first try. We cut it out of leather, and the ears just fell into place. As soon as they were sewn to the top of the hood, it took on a primal, animal quality. It's a powerful piece. I think I need to make one to  keep for myself! And I'm really looking forward to seeing what Karen does with it...