In Montreal I found a broken adjustable dress form in a pile of trash and used foam, duct tape, and an old bra to try and make it my size. It didn’t really work out… the boobs were too high (rather the shoulders too low pffft) and 4 rolls of black duct tape is not exactly easy to pin through. Other than a very curvy hanger, it wasn’t much use for draping… so it ended up in the trash again when I moved.

Anyhow… I found this new idea for making a custom sized flat pattern. Basically you wrap yourself in saran wrap and then cut it off. Check it out…

fashion incubator – saran wrap pattern making method #1

While looking for different scrap patchwork and quilting techniques I found this great scarf tutorial that uses scraps and water soluble sticky stabilizer… click the photo for a link to the tutorial.

Apparently nothing new to many textile designers and quilters… but I can’t wait to get my hands on this stuff and experiment!

can be bought here

As much as I’m totally for reusing stuff till it disintegrates completely, if someone even suggests I replace a tent zipper again I’m gonna kick their ass.

Seems like it should be pretty simple right? I’ve done a lot of zippers, but this one changed my life forever… I will never look at a tent the same again.

My neighbour brought me her dad’s small tent that needed the entry zipper replaced. It had duct tape holding half of it together, the rest of the zipper was badly damaged. No problem, or so I thought…

I went to one of the local fabric and trim shops for “zipper by the yard”. Unfortunately he didn’t have the same type of zipper so I could reuse the sliders, but they could have been the source of the damage in the first place. So he hooked me up with a double sided slider from a jacket zipper, cut that zipper to get the slider off (which itself is worth a couple dollars),  spent 15 min or so putting on the new slider and a stopper – all for only $5! Sweet! I tried to give him $10 (considering the time he spent helping me and the other zipper) but he refused. I thought “wow, what a super guy and he must really want my business” but, he must have known how difficult this was going to be.

So off I go… spent an hour ripping the old one out, removing duct tape, and trying to remove some of duct tape sticky shit left behind, good times. Then I make new casings for the ends, wicked. I attach one side of the zipper, happy to find out it is exactly the right length. Everything looks good. Start with the other side and get about 3/4 of the way and realize something is not right. This side is shorter than the other by about 5 inches. wtf? riiiiight… it’s a CURVED seam. Means one side is longer than the other. Awesome.

So I rip out the longer side, read on the internet about fixing tent zippers (should have done that first right? shut-up) and sure enough, you have to “ease” the longer side in. Let me tell you, there’s absolutely nothing “ease”y about easing nylon. Second try, bunch of little mini pleats and looks like hell. Third try, still some pleats, looks a little better but now it’s too short. Fourth try, whooooo I think I got it. Still has little pleats in it, but fuck it. I’m not ripping it out again.

$40, minus $5 for the zipper… and a lot of stitch ripping.

Alright, so if you need a tent zipper fixed, don’t ask me. Take your broken-ass hippie crap somewhere else! Or screw the environment and anti-consumerism, throw that shit in the garbage, and buy a new one.

Tents are on sale at Canadian Tire.

p.s. if you have to sew something with duct tape goo on it, try rubbing some flour into it. yes I said flour.

I found this great tutorial on Instructables for “true DIY guide to screen printing” and it included instructions on making photo emulsion using a chemical called Potassium Dichromate (which I found at Kama Pigment in Montreal). It’s highly toxic but if done carefully won’t kill you.

Some might ask “why not just buy Diazo photo emulsion for $20?”… well because once you mix the kit you have to use it all within a couple days and then it’s garbage. for $20 and making it yourself you have 5 times as much, which you only have to mix as much as you will use in a couple days and save the rest for later.