bag proto #1.

no tattoo appt. with cesar last wednesday before thanksgiving, so i decided to go blindly into making a bag. i'm so excited by how little i know about pattern making. so much to learn. decent for a 1st shot i guess, maybe not. only about a hundred prototypes left to go before we can send something off to get produced. it was fun to weld up all the little metal hardware for it too... and at least the leather smells good. isn't our mannequin foxy?

connie the sewing machine!

tosh and i picked up connie today from goldblatt sewing machines. super nice to finally have something with a walking foot. we were chumps, now we have to see if the consew... can sew.

prints.

had some prints made recently. pretty happy with how then turned out. securing a source for professional framing so we can market some prints on the website when we launch...

nathans update.

i made a mold for the first of the nathans series. pulled the first waxes today, remembering about all this stuff... its been a long time since i've done any of it. should be able to clean some up and make them in metal soon enough though!

pro photog.

tyler came by this afternoon and shot some pics of me and koboshop for a school project of his. cool to see someone learning more of the intricacies of digital photography. i'll post his results when he gets them to me...

learning to spell our names.

this was from this summer on a motorbike trip to door county. toshi and i spelling our names with sparklers.

milly vanilly.

koboshop welcomes milly. a new member to the kobotool family. lowering milly off the truck was less eventful than sheldon was. much less dangerous too...

hands.

we love hands @ koboshop. you create with them, as well as learn through them. we're going to begin a series of hand photos as the website goes up. stay tuned...

bolso de cuero de vaca.

loved this bag my cousin audrey got from argentina. so simple. suck in all the references kobo.

megafabrics.

tosh and i went down to chicago discount textile outlet on sunday. quite an experience, i'm glad toshi got to check it out, and i saw a bunch of things i'll have to come back and get, too cool for school. its like the biggest fabric store in the world made a love child with aldi's, 2121 21st street. oogie boogie. toshi is aghast, as you can see.

hoot rood!

guess who's here??? the hotrod is now in koboshop! look at how full the shop is getting with bits and pieces that don't work. isn't it wonderful?

i will state it here, hotrod and r90s will be done after this winter. on the road next year. fingers crossed. time to start buying lottery tickets.

oh yeah, chung's bike is at the shop for a long winter nap now too...

new (old) toolbox.

i am a scavenger. i am a scavenger. my uncle finally threw out his broke-arse toolbox out at the farm, which was a really good this because its completley crappy. BUT, the top of it wasn't that bad after a little cleaning and sheet metal tweakin... no sense throwing it out right? an organized toolbox is a good thing, like a broken pair of leather boots.

2 kilns.

picked up another, smaller kiln that was my grandmother's. its much nicer than the other one. hopefully will use this one for ceramics and the other one for powdercoating. super cool!

motorbike rejuvenation.

took most of the motor and tranny to motowerks yesterday for a freshen up over the winter. this will motivate me to finish the rest of the bike as someone else is completing the motor. super cool guys at motowerks.

donating plasma.

first trial cuts on the plasma are made. made lots of smoke in the shop though. time to figure out how to hook up this big dog vent we got from F.

pondering...

the more we look at logos, the simpler they become. its taking us way too long to decide...

john's straps

john came over monday and we worked on a little better prototype of his camera straps. it was good to start doing some collaboration, and start using the 2nd floor work space. this also just confirmed how i pretty much have to get another sewing machine. the singer is rad, but not happenin' for the thicker stuff, this stuff was pushing its limits.

the soft goods stuff is continuing to fascinate me as well. it so challenging, not like anything i'm used to. its also interesting to me how much i was frustrated with the thing, until it was finished. i mean, its still very much a prototype, but one can start to feel alot from the thing in your hand. just so much different than metal or plastic. maybe just because i'm so unused to it.

its also nice working with johnny, because you feel famous with your own personal paparazzi. he just picks up cameras and shoots pictures all the freakin time. i love it!

anyways, i was pumped, hope this can start to foster this studio atmosphere i've been wanting to recreate for years....

so excited to have clean britches.

- freakin heavy unit carried to 3rd floor. check.

- 220 run up to 3rd floor. check

- drain installed and tapped into main building drainage. check.

- copper plumbing run up to new laundry room. check.

- ventilation hooked up into wall to outside. check.

- rest of room clean up, electrical fixed, hangers put up. check.

i've NEVER been so freakin excited to do my laundry in my whole life!

el presidente.

toshi toiling away in cold kobo.

laundry time.

got a sweet washer and dryer downtown from someone on craigslist. it's like bran new. we've got the conduit run, just need to pull wires and run some water pipe up the 3rd floor. got the drain installed as well. i'm going to do laundry for the first time in a month this week!!!

pattern.

scribed tattoo pattern on a piece of leatha. yeah, whateva.

sheldon lives!

got the lathe hooked up, runs like a charm. now needs some cleanin' , oilin', and levelin'.

plasma!

getting there. electric is hooked up, and we ran it around, but need to put in the slats and put in some ventilation still. will be experimenting with it this week. toshi got the computer working again too.

leatha, yeah, whateva.

been stock piling large leather samples. love curtis @ horween. let's see what these turn in to!