Frederico Polidori - Leather Craftsman

The Italian leather craftsman, Frederico Polidori, was someone, whom I had heard mentions of on some leatherworking forums. Apparently he's incredible talented when it comes to constructing handmade bags. That's why I was very pleased to see more of his work featured on ACL, when he visited Polidori's workshop in Rome some time ago. His style is very nice, albeit I'll never be a fan of tooling or the obvious Wild West influences.

Very recently I was looking to pick up some ideas from his beautiful bags when I stumbled upon this short video of him and I just had to share. Mostly because I just love his gestures and mostly his facial expression. It reminds me of the Italians, I know. Some of them have the most amazing ways of saying everything with a simple nod.

Crafts - iPhone 3+4 Case

Lately I haven't quite been up to much in the basement. I have lacked time, energy and inspiration. But yesterday I decided to get down there and get to work! It was a struggle at first, but then I decided to make an iPhone case - another one - for myself and my girlfriend, as we both just bought one.

So yesterday I cut the leather and prepared the leather. Today I spent some time finishing it - although I must say that the edges haven't been burnished yet and the cases haven't been oiled. So consider them somewhat finished, but not quite.

The construction is pretty much the same as the previous one, except these cases were made in a darker vegetable tanned leather (from Italy) and instead of the polyester thread, I used a thinner (5ply) waxed linen thread from Barbour. I would have like to have used a thicker linen thread of 7 or 8 ply, but that's probably just me and I don't have that thickness in this colour at the moment. But besides that change and a couple of other twitches everything was the same, including the wet shaping.

Enjoy - and remember they are also on Flickr.

One Month of Denim - Day 21

Roy Slaper of Roy Denim is an artist. No doubt about that. Just like Blue Highway, he is making his own jeans one by one, but he has got a bigger and better selection of machinery. The cool thing is that he makes everything himself and he does all of it on old machines from Singer and Union Special for instance. Before reading anymore you should just watch this video done by Self Edge.

When he started out he offered made to order jeans for customers through Superfuture and they were definitely in demand, so much that he decided to focus on making jeans and selling them online exclusively through Self Edge.

I think I could write a lot more about Roy and his one man operation, but I think many people have done so and done so with a great angle in the past, that I would much rather turn your attention to them. But may I just add, that I love the scalloped stitch, he uses.

Grain & Gram

Denim News

Revolver

Superfuture

Did I mention, that he makes a pair of fantastic jeans in duck cotton? Well, he does.

And did I mention, that there is another movie of his jeans-making-goodness floating around? Well, there is.

Crafts - "Sigge" Cardholder

I have been making this cardholder for some time now. I called it the "Sigge" after an old lady named Sigrid, which I unfortunately never had the pleasure of meeting. She passed away some months ago. Actually I heard that she always carried cash and never even had any credit cards - she always paid in cash, so it is a bit odd, that I have now named this cardholder after her. But her health insurance card was in the pocket of an old leather jacket of hers from which I was cutting out the leather. When I was making the cardholder and needed to see if it was the right size, I rummaged through my pockets and found her health insurance card. Hence the name Sigge.

The cardholder is ALL handmade. It will hold upto 6 cards (with some stretch and wear) and will hopefully develop a beautifull patina with wear.

I made the cardholder with the "THINK" impressed in it for one of my best friends. It was his birthday a couple of days ago, and I couldn't attend it, so instead I decided to give him a new cardholder, as he somehow managed to lose the old one, I made for him. Hopefully this one is a keeper. There is no meaning to the "THINK" besides it being a nod to the old Thinkpad that IBM made.