A Weighty Problem

I needed "real" pattern weights. Staplers and scissors tend to be my go-to pattern weights because I keep them nearby, but they get kind of unwieldy for holding down bra patterns that have lots of individual little fiddly pieces. 

FabMo, my favorite source for fabrics (except for bras!), also regularly gets donations of tiles from high-end bathroom design stores at the San Francisco Design Center. Many of these are plain (but handmade!) 4-inch or 6-inch square tiles and 2" by 4" subway tiles, but they often get other sizes and shapes, as well as mounted pattern examples that make great trivets. I recently found a square-foot sample of hand-cut marble pieces held together by fiberglass mesh and grout on the backs, as well as a few nice small shaped tiles. They would make great pattern weights!

I pulled apart the marble squares by hand, and pulled off as much of the mesh and grout as I could. It was only after doing that for an hour or so that I realized the mesh was fiberglass! Oops. Handling fiberglass with bare hands isn't a good idea, and I had lots of little fiberglass splinters in my hands to remind me. I did manage to get most of them out with Scotch tape or tweezers. I wore medical gloves for the rest of the time I was working with the fiberglass.

I found an article on the web that suggested using plain granulated sugar dissolved in water to help scrub the grout off tiles, so I put about a cup of sugar in two cups of water, stirred, and dumped in several of my marble tiles. It also suggested using a piece of wood to scrape off the grout to avoid scratching the tile.

Here are the tiles after I had tried to pull off the fiberglass and grout by hand and after soaking in the sugar water for half an hour. The stringy stuff is the fiberglass.

I used some disposable chopsticks to try scraping off the grout, but they were useless (and they broke). I finally tried a razor scraper, which worked, though I did go through several blades while scraping grout off about 16 tiles. I'm not sure the sugar water helped with the grout, but it did help keep the fiberglass under control because it was slightly sticky!

 

I soaked one scraped marble piece in vinegar overnight. I had heard that vinegar (and acids in general) was bad for marble. Yep, it is! Here is the vinegar-soaked tile on the right, with another tile (polished to a nice shine, though the shine isn't really visible in the picture) on the left for comparison. The vinegar ate away at the matrix material of the tile, leaving a pale, soft chalky surface with little harder inclusions sticking out slightly. Lesson: don't pour vinegar on your marble floors!

Making the Pattern Weights

Here is how to make the simple pattern weights.

Materials needed:

• Small tiles or pieces of marble or stone with a flat bottom, from 1 inch by 2 inches up to 2 inches by 4 inches (about 2.5 cm by 5 cm up to 5 cm by 10cm). Approximately 2 inches by 2 inches (about 5 cm by 5 cm) is ideal for most uses.

• Cork sheet, about 1/8 inch thick (2-5 mm thick). Available at craft stores, office supply stores, and stores such as Daiso. My roll of cork sheet came from Office Depot.

• Glue or adhesive. I used basic Elmer's white glue. Tacky glue will also work. Adhesive sheet or double-stick tape will also work, but I have found that those are more likely to come unstuck over time. The pattern weights do not need to be waterproof. If water gets on them while you are working with a pattern, your pattern would be more damaged than the pattern weight!
  
  
• Scissors, knife or rotary cutter and ruler for cutting the cork.
  
  
• Pen/pencil for marking the cork if needed. Do NOT use a marker to trace around the tile, not even a washable marker. The tile or marble sucks in the ink, and it's impossible to wash off! Yes, I found this out the hard way.
  
  
• Ruler

Process

1. Trace around the tile or marble onto the cork. 

 

2. Cut your pieces of cork slightly smaller than the tile so the cork does not show from the top of the pattern weight. Make to cork piece approximately 1/16th of an inch (1-2 mm) inside each edge of the tile.

3. Spread a small amount of glue onto one side of the cork and onto the bottom side of the tile. I spread the glue evenly with my finger on both pieces. You do not need much glue. If you have too much it will ooze out from the sides and make a mess.

4. Put the pieces together carefully and let dry. Clean off any excess glue if needed.

All done! 

Here are my finished pattern weights: 

  

P.S. If you do not have tiles easily available or making these is just too much bother, a set of heavy plastic (imitation ivory) dominoes work well as pattern weights. Alternatively, you can search for pattern weights from several makers on Etsy. 

TV Chair Adventures -- Part 3

When I last wrote, I had given up the idea of trying to sew the leather pieces together to cover my chair. Gluing the leather on became the next obvious choice, but dealing with the contours was still giving me trouble. It wasn't until I was chatting with another artist (during a papier mache seminar I was attending), that I realized how to do it.

First, I removed the foam insulation tube from the chair form. I took the leather strip for the foam insulation tube and glued it onto the tube directly, with one long edge tucked into the slit of the tube and the other edge loose. Then I glued the big piece of leather directly onto the outside of the Deck-o-foam-covered Sonotube. Finally, I put the leather-covered insulation tube back around the edge of the leather-covered Sonotube and glued everything down (the loose edge of the leather on the insulation tube is glued to the inside of the Sonotube).

Here is how the back looks.


Cushions

Now that the outside of the chair is done, it's time to get back to work on the cushions.

For the round seat cushion, I cut three layers of 2-inch-thick, high-density polyurethane foam and stacked them inside the cover. I then stapled the cover very tightly onto one of the plywood circles.



For the back cushion, I cut out a piece of the scrap Sonotube so it would fit into the opening inside the insulation tube in the back of the chair.


I used the scraps of high-density foam left over from my denim-quilted dining room chairs to pad the back cushion. Since I wanted to contour the cushion to provide some lumbar support (opposite the direction of the Sonotube at the lower back area), it took some careful arranging!



Lacey shows off the careful use of duct tape to secure the foam scraps.


I wrapped a piece of the blue-green leather around the back assembly and fitted it in tightly, gluing down the leather flaps at the bottom to the inside of the main Sonotube piece. The piece of Sonotube inside the back cushion also helps to strengthen the back of the chair.


The seat cushion then got shoved up against the bottom of the back cushion. To fit the seat cushion properly against the back cushion, I needed to take it out, take off the seat cover, cut off some foam, and restaple the leather more loosely (besides, I didn't like the shiny stretched look of the tightly-stapled leather). I got it right eventually.


But Will It Hold My Weight?

The Sonotube is sturdy, but it's meant to meant to take outward-pushing stresses that cause tension around its circumference, not just downward along the axis of the tube. To deal with this, I want to make the plywood circles carry the weight, not the tube. I glued some wood pieces into the tube up against the top circle. Their job is to hold the plywood circles apart. I screwed the bottom circle into the wood pieces.

I added feet to the bottom circle so the Sonotube is suspended slightly above the floor and does not directly carry the weight of the chair's occupant.


Finished!

I had to be the first to try out the chair, and Lacey decided she had to join me!

Yes, it holds my weight just fine. I later tested it out with a much-heavier friend, and it held him with no trouble (he thought it was pretty comfy, so I had a hard time getting him out of it).

But Wait, There's More!

It would hardly be a proper TV chair without a matching ottoman, so I got a piece of 12-inch-diameter Quiktube and made one. I cut three lengths (9 inches plus two 7.5-inch pieces), and cut out thin sections out of the two short pieces so I could fit them inside the longer one to strengthen it (the 12-inch diameter tube is much thinner than the 18-inch-diameter Sonotube). I used the scraps of the leathers and cushion foam. I covered the outer tube with the black leather (no Deck-o-foam), and made the seat cushion the same way as the larger one, by stapling the leather over the foam onto a pre-cut plywood circle.

I glued wood pieces inside the tube between the plywood circles, and I screwed on the bottom plywood circle. Done!


Here's the set.


It's not the cheapest chair (it totaled about USD $250 for the set), but it's unique, small, comfortable, and my kids love it.

Getting to sit in my own chair without a fight: priceless.

A satisfied customer. It's just her size.

TV Chair Adventures -- Part 2

Part of what inspired me to make this chair was that I found an odd little piece of leather on one of my too-regular forays over to the local Tandy stores. They get odd lots of various upholstery leathers from tanning companies, and I'm always keeping my eyes open for nice bits in blues and greens that my kids might like. There was this one small piece (maybe 15 square feet) in a mottled blue-green with a shiny finish that caught my eye, and I nabbed it (it was one of a kind--none of the employees saw any others like it). Somehow I didn't manage to get a picture of the piece before I cut it up, but I started making a round cushion from it for the seat of the chair.


I found that stapling the pieces together worked better than pinning (in the seam allowance so holes won't show in the finished cushion). I got fewer stab wounds that way, too! I sewed the cushion sides on using heavy Gutermann polyester thread. This is pretty heavy and stiff leather (think of vinyl seats in a diner, and you'll be close), and I had a lot of trouble sewing through it on my machine (skipped stitches, etc., even with a "walking foot"). I got through the main seam around the cushion, but gave up sewing a second line around to stitch down the seam allowance. I ended up gluing that down.


Since I only had enough of the blue-green leather to cover the chair cushions, I got a huge black "Zora" hide from Tandy to cover the outside of the chair. This is beautiful soft matte garment leather. It's thin, a little stretchy, and it feels wonderful.


More Tubes: Foam Insulation
I find inspiration everywhere. I love to wander around hardware stores looking for tools and materials that might be good for projects. This time I found slit foam tubes that are used for insulating hot water pipes. They fit over the cut edge of the Sonotube and make a nice contour. Some of them even come with double-sided tape on the slit edges, so I was able to bend the foam around the edge of the chair and then pull out the plastic strip covering the adhesive. Here's how it looks on my sample piece.


Covering the Chair

My initial thought was that I would fit the leather over the chair with a big piece going around the Sonotube cylinder and a separate strip sewn onto the big piece so it would fit tightly over the contoured pipe insulation. So I cut it all out and pinned it together (the chair is upside down in this picture).


I sewed it all together (incurring many stab wounds in the process), put it on the chair, and it was a disaster. The contouring didn't work at all. This was one of those times where making a muslin version first would have been a good idea, but of course I just jumped in on sewing the leather, and in hindsight I think it would never have worked the way I had envisioned. I ripped out all of my seams, threw everything in a pile, and let the project sit stalled for a couple of weeks.

To be continued...

TV Chair Adventures -- Part 1

I need a special chair for my living room. My kids have both outgrown the teeny little wooden rocker they used to use to watch TV, as well as their cute little plastic chairs, and now they keep fighting over who gets to sit in MY favorite chair. My lovely tie-dyed couch is too far away from the TV for their viewing pleasure. Rather than all-out war, it's time to find a new solution.

I have some pretty specific requirements, since floor space is at a premium in my living room. After all, we have lots of bins of stuff, plus a consistent Wii-Fit user who wants enough space for the yoga mat and push-ups. So the new chair has to have a fairly small footprint. Also, I want a back for comfy TV watching, but the back and seat have to be fairly low so that anyone sitting on the tie-dyed couch behind it will still be able to see the TV. A "gamer's chair" would be a little too low--old people like me need to be able to get up from the chair. I searched for "low chair" on the Web, and I found some I'd love, but most of the ones I really liked were in the $2000 range (and while she may think she's worth it, do I really want Lacey taking over a $2000 chair?)!

My older daughter and I came up with a design that would fit the requirements without breaking the bank, and it would be uniquely ours.

Really Big Toilet Paper Tubes

It is possible to get really large heavy cardboard tubes that are used in construction work for pouring concrete posts and columns. Use "cardboard concrete form" as your search criteria. There are various makers such as Sonotube, Quikcrete, and Sakrete, but many contractors simply refer to them as Sonotube (similar to using the word "Kleenex" to refer to any type of facial tissue--bad for protecting brand trademarks, but everyone knows what you want). The big chain hardware stores (Home Depot, OSH) carry them in stock in up to 12 inches in diameter, but for the bigger ones (18, 24, 30, 36 inches in diameter), you need to go to a construction contractors' supply store. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I got some at Peninsula Building Materials Co. I got a 30-inch-long piece of 18-inch-diameter Sonotube there for USD $25.95 including tax ($9.50 per foot). I later got a 4-foot-long Quickcrete 12-inch-diameter tube at the local OSH for the matching ottoman.

Regular Old Toilet Paper Tubes

The kids and I spent a fun hour or two cutting up our large collection of used-up cardboard toilet paper tubes to make chair models.


After lots of time and discussion, we decided on the basic pattern to use for the chair (something in between the three middle models in the back row above).

We also did a fair amount of "design by comparison", where we sat in our existing chairs and measured how we fit in those chairs and where the contours were that made the chair comfortable or not.



We decided to make the seat platform about 12 inches from the floor. I made a full-size paper pattern to model the chair.


The pattern would later fit around the Sonotube so I could trace it for cutting.

Cutting the Sonotube

The large-diameter tubes such as my 18-inch-diameter tube are very thick (around 1/4-inch thick) cardboard (not corrugated), and they are quite hard to cut. I tried a number of (non-powered) things, but what worked the best for me was to use a utility knife (box cutter) to just stab through the cardboard. Later, for trimming edges and fine tuning, I would cut along my line as deeply as possible, peel off a layer of cardboard from the discarded side of the line, cut along the line again, peel off another layer, and so on, until I could finally cut directly through what was left.

I bought two pre-cut plywood circles (Closetmaid brand) that were 17.75 inches in diameter. I planned to use one inside the bottom edge to protect the Sonotube and the other as the seat platform.


While I was at the Peninsula Building Materials Co., I also bought a roll of Deck-o-foam, used for expansion joints in concrete, to cover the outside of the Sonotube. It's actually the same type of foam I used in my origami patterns, though a different shape (4 inches wide, half-an-inch thick, and 50-feet long for USD $20) and not rescued from a packing box.


I used the same FastBond 30 glue I currently use for making my sandals (I still have a lot left of the gallon I bought!).


I covered the entire outside surface of the tube with the Deck-o-foam.


Now I've got the basic structure of my chair.

Visiting Michael at Island Sandals

When I was getting started on my sandalmaking project, I spent some time with Google searching on the Internet for shoemakers, shoemaking supplies, sandalmaking, and other similar queries (a close friend taught me a few years ago how useful Google can be, and now I'm addicted to it). I found lots of interesting results, such as a high fashion designer shoemaking school, YouTube videos on old-fashioned shoemaking, shoe repair suppliers, and so on.

Serendipitous Coincidence

One of the websites I found was for Island Sandals, located in Lahaina, Maui. It so happened that I was already planning a family Winter Break trip to Hawaii (the Big Island and Maui) to see the volcanoes there (inspired by a recent unit in my older daughter's middle school science class). I started an email correspondence with Michael the Sandalmaker, and made plans to visit him in his shop in Lahaina while I was on Maui.

Among other things, I carted all four pairs of sandals I had made so far to Lahaina with me (that was easy--the kids were wearing theirs!) to get Michael's opinions and advice on them.

I didn't take many pictures or any video while I was visiting Michael, since some previous visitors had already done an extensive set of videos of Michael discussing his sandals, their care and cleaning, and some of the reasons he makes them the way he does.

The Sandal Design

Michael bases his sandal design on an ancient Ethiopian design meant for running warriors. The classic design is elegant in its simplicity. It has two straps: one runs under the heel and comes up on both sides of the heel as the riser, and the other is a long thin strap that winds around the foot and through holes in the sole to form the main part of the sandal. This "harness" strap arrangement holds the sandal on the foot really well so that the relatively-thin sandal sole moves with the foot (as opposed to the motion of the sole of a flip-flop sandal). When I tried some on, I felt like I should be doing dance moves in them.


The blue in the picture is the foam Michael uses for padding. The old sandal on the right is one Michael shows customers of an example of a sandal that has been well cared for with Saddle Soap and has been worn pretty much constantly for 15 years or so.

The main strap is fastened with an ancient and very simple knot that gets tighter over time.

Here is the back of the knot:

Here is a slip-knot version of the knot, used for things that need to be released easily:


The only metal in the shoe is a trio of brass nails that reinforce the attachment of the rubber heel.

The Pattern

Michael showed me how he traces the feet, keeping the ballpoint pen straight up and down for an accurate pattern. Since most people's feet are not the same, he traces both feet. Here is Michael's example of a foot tracing.

The holes for the straps are located such that the straps never go directly underneath where the bones of the feet press on the sole. For example, in the picture above of Michael's old sandal, the heel riser strap goes across underneath the foot just in front of where the heel comes down on the sole, not directly underneath the heel. Also, the straps never press on the bones above the soles (you wouldn't want a strap pressing on a bunion), but rather they nestle into the hollows between them.

All the Cool Toys

One advantage Michael has (besides working in beautiful Lahaina) is that he has all the right tools. Over the years he has bought a shopful of shoemaking and shoe repair tools from various places, typically from shoe makers and repairers who were retiring. The technology for making custom shoes hasn't changed very much over the past 50 or more years, even though the technology for mass producing shoes (like athletic shoes, for example) has changed quite a bit.

One of Michael's main tools is known as a finisher, which is basically a long spinning pole with several different wheels spaced along it for grinding, sanding, and polishing, such as for grinding and sanding the edges of a new sole of a shoe (here is what a new one looks like--Michael's is a much older finisher, though probably not quite as old as this one from 1948). It's a standard machine for a shoe repair business. It's also quite dangerous (especially the older ones), since it's easy for straps and such to get caught in it. Michael told me he'd once gotten a finger caught, and the finisher had dislocated all of the finger joints. Ouch!

Michael also has a stitching machine that pokes a hole with an awl-like point and then pokes back through the hole with the thread-bearing needle. Also a dangerous machine (not for use by kids).

I'm not planning to get any of the shoemaking machinery Michael has--it simply won't fit in my garage (and we now have a rule that I can only bring in new stuff if I get rid of the equivalent amount of stuff!). I probably won't be starting a business or making enough shoes to justify big equipment anyhow. But it's great to see how the pros do it!

The Leather

Michael uses latigo leather exclusively. This is leather that has been dyed and heavily oiled at the tannery. It's perfect for sandals. Michael gets his leather from all over the world.

(Not) Sniffing Glue

One great piece of advice Michael gave me was to move away from using contact cement that contained MEK (methyl ethyl ketone), toluene, and other toxic chemicals. He suggested a different adhesive, 3M's FastBond 30, which is water based. It turns out to be fairly hard to find, but I was able to order a gallon of it online through thegluedepot.com.

I'm now using the Fastbond 30 for all of my shoemaking work. I really like it. It seems to hold just as well as the regular contact cement from Tandy, but it doesn't smell nearly as bad, and it doesn't need to carry a "could be fatal" warning on the label (a big plus, since I planned to use it with a bunch of middle school girls). I also find it easier to work with, since it's more like paint, and it doesn't get as stringy as regular contact cement. The downside is that you do have to wait a bit longer for the Fastbond 30 to dry before you can put the pieces together. A fan helps with the drying, though (and dissipates what smell there is).

A Fun Visit

Michael clearly enjoys his work and talking to his visitors, though a lot of his custom sandals are ordered by mail (especially for repeat customers). His sandals are really beautiful.

I had a great time visiting Michael in Lahaina, and I learned a lot. Thanks, Michael!

Shoe Mania, Part 1: Desire, Design, and De Soles

I've long been longing to make my own shoes, particularly sandals. It seems like it should be pretty straightforward: find something to use as a sole, and strap it to your feet somehow. Simple, right?

Right. As my older daughter is fond of reminding me, I never like to do things the easy way. And I never start with the easiest version. Nah, that would be too easy!

Now that I've gotten into leather working, it seems to me that the next thing after belts should be shoes. After all, since I'm not a gunslinger, how many tooled holsters do I need?

Addiction

I'm not a total shoe addict like Imelda Marcos or some of the celebrities and fans of shows like "Sex and the City", but I've owned a few pairs of shoes over the years. The highest count I remember getting to was 83 pairs before I started getting rid of them in earnest (though I haven't counted lately--the count may have crept up again).

I don't tend to go for the really expensive shoes like they show on TV. Fortunately I have pretty "normal" size 7-ish medium-width feet, so I don't have a hard time finding shoes that fit. My most expensive shoes ever are some Dansko clogs ($125) that I wear all the time in the northern California winter, and my current favorite shoes are some faux-fur-lined "tie-dyed" plastic clogs I got for seven bucks on close-out at Walmart.


Style

One big lure for me on making my own shoes is style. I can make them the way I want them, and it doesn't have to follow any particular fashion or fad of the moment. Getting my own style turns out to be harder than just the design and the desire, but that's the general idea.

I've always really liked shoes with strongly upturned toes, or what I think of as "elf" or "Turkish" style toes, just because I think they're cute and different. Of course, those are pretty hard to find at Walmart or any of the usual shoe emporia in my area. However, I did once find some sandals in Singapore with upturned toes, and I love them.

The interesting thing about these sandals is that the upturned toe actually helps me walk. As I move forward, my toes push down on the upturned sole, which then pushes the heel section up like a see-saw, so the heel section actually follows my own heel as it moves upward. So walking in these sandals is more natural-feeling and easy than the scuffing I find I have to do with other mule-type sandals.

I also like the adjustability and security of straps with buckles. Here is my rough sketch of my starting sandal design (which changed a bit before I finished the sandals, of course):


Getting Off Track Right from the Start

Since this was my first pair of sandals, I did a lot of experimentation along the way. I was following Tandy's "Sandal Making" eBook, but while very useful, it was fairly brief and couldn't answer questions I ran into. Also, of course I was doing my own sandal style, rather than one from the book, so I couldn't just follow a recipe. And to make things stray further from the book, I was using different types of leather, dyes, and finishing products. I also wanted to put padding in the sole, since I already know my heels get sore quickly without a lot of padding (I'm used to running shoes and similar cushioned shoes). Oh, and did I mention the upturned toes?

Making the Pattern

I started by making a pattern of my feet. I put ground-up chalk on my feet to get footprints as well as having my daughter draw around my feet (pencil vertical, please) on cardboard. I cut this pattern out, adding an extra quarter inch on each edge as the "seam allowance".


I then traced around that on another piece of cardboard, and added the extra allowance for the pointed toe to the second version. This way I can keep the original pattern for later and make modifications as needed on the pointed version.


Cutting Out the Pieces

Cutting out the pieces for the soles and the heels proved more difficult than I had expected. For the bottom (outer) sole and the heel layers, I was using saddle skirting leather, which is quite heavy and stiff (but not as stiff as an "armor and shield leather bend", which I knew I wouldn't be able to cut without a band saw). I was also cutting from a very large piece, an "extra large side" (that would be "half a cow" in normal English).


This stuff is 13 to 15 oz. in weight. From Tandy's list of leather-related terms: "Leather is usually measured in terms of ounces. One ounce equals 1/64th of an inch thickness."So a weight of 13 to 15 oz. means the leather is 13/64th to 15/64th of an inch thickness. Not quite a quarter of an inch thick. It felt like I was trying to cut out pieces of my favorite clipboard with a utility knife! I found out later that it's a lot easier to cut the leather if it's wet, but that has its own issues, such as waiting for it to dry.


I cut two pieces for each heel so I could stack them.

I used three different thicknesses of leather for my sandals: 13-15 oz. for the soles and heels, 6-7 oz. for the inner sole, and 4-5 oz. for the straps. I tried using the tin snips pictured here, but they didn't work all that well--probably not sharp enough. I found a utility knife worked the best for me. I used a strap cutter for the straps.


Here are my cut pieces:


Gluing on the Heels

I used contact cement to glue the heel pieces together and then onto the bottom soles.


Turning the Toes

Leather can be formed pretty easily by soaking it in water and letting it dry in the desired shape. In the following picture I had just poured out the soaking water from the bin. The leather was pretty floppy at that point.

Since it couldn't hold a shape on its own, I let the leather dry most of the way. Then I pressed it against my feet and shaped it the way I wanted, using rubber bands to hold the pieces together. The heels had come off when I tried to shape the soles, since the water had not completely soaked into the glued layers, so they were stiffer than the main sole.

You might notice that the heel pieces are now smaller and a different shape than they were when I cut them out. The "Sandal Making" book had suggested this slanted design, and when I had tried standing on the heels and soles for shaping, I found that the original heels were too big to be comfortable, so I cut off chunks of the heels.

The rectangle shape in the sole on the right in the following picture is from a piece of the excess heel that I had put there to create arch support while the soles were drying. It made quite an impression, as did the rubber bands holding the heels in their new place and shape. Fortunately those don't affect the final appearance of the sandals.

It took a couple of days to dry the soles completely, after which they were quite hard. I did the same soaking and shaping for the upper soles, though the result was much more flexible.



This forming process is quite fun, though it takes a long time and for most sandals it's really not necessary (those pointy toes require it here).

I'm now ready to build the upper parts of the sandals, which I'll cover in my next article.

Dog Mania

Yup, I got out my white sheet for a photo shoot again, and there was Lacey, offering her services as a model.


"Really, these would look good on me."


"Well, I'm not sure those pointy shoes are quite my style..."