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A few weeks ago my lovely, perfect, amazing bag started cracking. The leather literally started pealing away like those pictures of broken desert earth. This was, needless to say, very sad. But! Also an opportunity to try to make something even better.

I wanted a bag that would exactly fit everything that I considered necessary to carry around with me, but no more. The no more part is fairly key, as I will fill whatever bag I carry to capacity. I divided up my things into six categories, measured them and started modeling.



I cut the 167 mylar triangle inserts of the bag using my craftROBO. The trace paper patterns were also drawn using a pen attachment. Really, everyone should have a craftROBO. They turn impossible tasks into merely unreasonable ones.

After assembling the patterns and cutting out appropriately sized pieces from my leather hides, I coated each layer (yellow leather, mylar and blue-grey leather) in rubber cement. This, I believe, was the key step in the process. Mylar holds its shape perfectly, but is quite slippery and leather, while is has some grip, is very malleable. While this malleableness is great when trying to fudge a misaligned seam together, it would disastrous when multiplied over dozens of pieces. Laminating these two materials together, however, gave me stability and accuracy in the body of each piece along with some wiggle room around the edges.

Next came the especially tedious part! After letting the rubber cement dry — FYI, rubber cement adheres best when the surfaces being joined both have a thin, mostly dry layer on them — I traced the patterns onto the inner surface of the blue-grey leather using chalk transfer paper and a creasing wheel. I then placed the mylar triangles in their appropriate positions and coated their other side in rubber cement.

Once that final coat of rubber cement dried I carefully aligned and laid down the yellow leather layer. After taping down the paper pattern I cut through all layers with a rotary cutter, using a small exacto knife to get concave corners.

With the paper pattern still attached I sewed along the edges and between all the interior triangles creating a solid and well defined piece. This step went surprisingly fast and smoothly. The conventional wisdom is that leather will ruin a standard sewing machine. I decided to take the chance, as my machine is quite old and nearing retirement. However, sewing through two layers (with an occasional taste of mylar as well) didn't pose any problems.

Once all the pieces were complete I began assembly, using my paper model for reference. I divided the bag into several components: the back and flap, the bottom and strap, and the interior and front with the intention of assembling each region separately and then joining. That, as it turned out, didn't quite happen. Instead, I started slowing adding pieces together, trying to find the order that would keep as many seams as possible machine-sewable. Surprisingly, I was able to sew all but a single seam on my machine. I somehow managed to sew a 4 piece thick seam without so much as breaking a needle!

Below you can see the results:




In its first week of life my new bag has survived two rainstorms, the attentions of my office's dog and an MIA concert filled with enthusiastic people. Nothing has fallen out, and there has been very little wear. I think this bodes well for its future.

Finally, here's the paper mockup:

3d typography applet

I have some new Processing goodness. You can play with it yourself here:

3d typography applet

I haven't had good luck running this in Chrome. Safari, IE and Firefox seem to work fine.

Or just watch some videos. I made examples of some of my favorite Dorothy Parker quotations.

horticulture



martini



passes



lingerie



novel

small project roundup

My productivity continues! I've been doing a bunch of small, apartment-improving projects over the past couple weeks. I hacked apart my ottoman and filled it with bedding for my sleeper couch:

Created a new home for our many, many remotes:

Which reminds me, I need to play more Wii....

And! I've conned my roommate into letting me make things for his room too! This mail sorter is the first:

Vinyl records are terribly brittle and hard to cut. This design took a while to work out successfully.

Of course, I don't spend quite all of my time at home. I'm taking an electronics class at the Harvard Extension School. Soon I'll be able to make projects that have tiny brains of their own! This is a sticker I cut for my class notes binder and my very first circuit which compares the identities of two two-bit numbers.

remodeling is noisy

And it's happening next door. At 6:45 a.m.

I was amused yesterday, when they started after 7, and complained loudly about their wives/lack of decent lunches before take hammers and whatnot to the walls of the apartment on the other side of my bedroom wall. This morning, however, their banter was minimal, and they seem to be using quite a few circular saws and attempting to carve a hole in my actual wall. OK, they are probably not really going to make a hole, but my wall is certainly shivering in fear. So, here I am, at work, before 9! 9 in the morning! Quelle horreur!

Anyway, my brain hasn't quite caught up to the awakeness-level of my body, and I've been meaning to post some more of last Sunday's projects. So here you go.

Drawings!

Boy do I love my new pen attachment. I took some of my favorite photos, turned them into drawings, and plotted them with my Craft Robo. I quite like most of the results:

This image:

Became this drawing:

And this image:

Became this drawing:

I really need to take some daylight photos of the drawings. And done! The set is here. Or get a better camera.

I also finished turning my failed knitted hat into at...er...thing. I'm not sure what it is, or what I'll use it for. But I do know it's done!

Just as soon as my living room is clean, it is daylight and I am at home, I'll be posting about the saga of my new couch. So, in other words, May.

one fish. two fish. red fish. blue fish.

I have decided to attempt to keep something more complex than a plant alive. I know, I know my track record with plants is not exactly stellar. But! A few of them have lasted for almost a year now, and I feel it's time to move forward to slightly higher life-forms. After all, if I can run several computers on multiple OS's as well as a handful of mobile devices, how hard can keeping a fish alive be?

It seems pretty hard.

It's not that I didn't research, make sure I got appropriately sized containers, food and water purifiers. I did those things. I even managed to identify the cause of my second fish's death (fin rot) and attempt to treat it. Alas, it was too late. Newton and Leibniz have both gone down the drain, their rivalry unresolved. Although, Newton outlived Leibniz slightly, so I suppose he wins. As always. (I was rooting for Leibniz to come out on top this time.)

So back to the pet store I went. I suppose it is selfish of me to keep buying new fish and then having the die. Ah well. I just finished a bagel with lox, and that's much the same thing. I have named my new fish Euclid, as his container is decorated with various geometric symbols. He is far more lively than either of my previous two, and I have high hopes for his continued existence. He will play games with me!

I've also been up to making things, as always. I bought some sticky backed vinyl and a pen holder for my cutter. I've made quite a few stickers for my room and various laptops. There are plans for more, although I need to improve my placement technique.

I've also made portraits of my parents, although those were sent home and I have no pictures.

The Pearl art store a few blocks from my apartment has closed, a tragic event. But also an opportunity, for before it went, it sold off all its inventory at 75% off. Of course, I bought plenty. I am now the proud owner of a new mitre saw (my last was stolen with my other architecture tools when I graduated), lots of rubber cement, paint, brushes, material for my cutter and various other tools. I also found what I think is a tea rack on the curb. I sanded and painted it and it now holds many of my new supplies.



I'm having some thoughts about the design of this blog as well...it may be changing.

old projects and new

I've been, er, busy for past few weeks. My unusual amount of productivity is catching up with me in the form of mild exhaustion, but before I fall asleep and an impenetrable forest of nettles grows around me which can only cleared by the laser cutter of my dreams, I thought I would share with the internet all my progress.

I've updated my portfolio website with my new professional, independent and craft projects from the past year. I even managed to dig out the source code for my project browser and updated that too. Yay data visualization!

When I was at home for the holidays I finally managed to photograph the remains of my childhood projects that were littering my old room and basement. Behold, the flickr set of my childhood:

I'm trying to get my mother to fire the large bust and mail it to me. I've been wanting to display that thing since I made it in 10th grade.

And, drum roll, I have made an etsy store! A keen observer may have noticed the link I added to the right a couple days ago. I am now selling three whole different types of things! Someone should buy one! Possibly you?

Etsy Buy Handmade jftesser

In any case, please wish my fledging entrepreneurial venture luck.

i made some things!

It's been awhile since my last project. Work has been keeping me pretty busy, both in terms of mental horsepower and actual time, so I've been less inclined to tinker.

However, I was inspired by my recent computer purchase's packaging (and, really, when am I not inspired by packaging?) and I've got the making stuff bug back. Below are my first two salvos. If I get what I want for xmas, there'll be lots more projects soon!

iDevice stands from corner packaging. I cut a channel down the center for the cord and painted the whole thing white to match my strict red/white bedroom color scheme.

A further mod to my Expedit "dresser". Formerly, this shelf had eight boxes in it serving as drawers, but what I really wanted was more hanging space. I unscrewed the top (well, actually the side) and removed the interior shelves on half the unit, reattached the end piece and put in a tension rod. Et voila, a place to hang my shirts!