kc winter

nah girl, that’s how you end up with a face full of pins...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:51:51 -0500

nah girl, that’s how you end up with a face full of pins and all your chalk lines get jacked

ornamentedbeing:

Sweet dreams everyone!

The Sleeping Seamstress, Ad for Globéol by Gerda Wegener

c. 1915

GUYS, HOW DID WE EVER RIDE OUR BIKES WITHOUT THIS PINNACLE OF...

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:36:15 -0500

GUYS, HOW DID WE EVER RIDE OUR BIKES WITHOUT THIS PINNACLE OF DESIGN AND INNOVATION.

for the low price of $199.95

#skymall #bikechi #tinyfix

Let’s listen to lists of people I don’t know, in a ...

Sat, 11 May 2013 08:21:29 -0500

Let’s listen to lists of people I don’t know, in a spaceship

A Tiny Fix field trip to the south side, gotta get started on...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:01:48 -0500

A Tiny Fix field trip to the south side, gotta get started on those cycling tan lines

Worked 60 hours this week. Now for some “me” time....

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:01:38 -0500

Worked 60 hours this week. Now for some “me” time. Cuttin out a shirt for some summertime fun

Tall Pat. Have fun with that Dana (at Longman & Eagle)

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:19:39 -0500

Tall Pat. Have fun with that Dana (at Longman & Eagle)

Batshit large scale structure designing. My head hurts

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:02:37 -0500

Batshit large scale structure designing. My head hurts

One year ago today, a car left me for dead in the middle of the...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:51:08 -0500

One year ago today, a car left me for dead in the middle of the street in broad daylight. I woke up hours later in a hallway of the ER with Cupcake watching over me. To this day, every time I blink, I feel my facial muscles move against the messed up bone in my cheek. Every time I fly, the right side of my face hurts. There is an ugly dent and scar in my left shin. Fuck you, shitty driver, I hope you get run over one day

14 hours of overtime, sure why not. And I still have another...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:45:26 -0500

14 hours of overtime, sure why not. And I still have another shift in the morning

How it feels to sign a receipt at a bike shop

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:58:32 -0500

whatbikeracersshouldcallme:

vintagegal: Machine Worker in Summer (model is Joan Richards)...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:09:11 -0500

vintagegal:

Machine Worker in Summer (model is Joan Richards) photographed by Madame Yevonde, 1937 (x)

okay maybe I have done this on more than one occasion when I lived alone and had no AC in the summer time. but it was only cause i was sewing whatever I was going to wear…..i swear

At the hospital instead of being on a very important work trip,...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:12:19 -0500

At the hospital instead of being on a very important work trip, which totally eliminates me from any sort of hope of a promotion any time soon. I could use some cheer later, having a cold last week and now spraining my neck is just beyond depressing.

Again. (at Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD))

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:02:49 -0500

Again. (at Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD))

I went to Philly for a work trip and all I got was….this...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:35:52 -0500

I went to Philly for a work trip and all I got was….this sewing machine? This seriously was how my luggage was when i came home yesterday (at Winter + Winter + Titcomb)

Photo

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:23:02 -0500

Now that’s what I call a bike lane (at The Barnes in...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:21:10 -0500

Now that’s what I call a bike lane (at The Barnes in Philadelphia)

I did a tourist thing (at Art Museum Steps)

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:19:28 -0500

I did a tourist thing (at Art Museum Steps)

at Washinton Monument

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:18:12 -0500

at Washinton Monument

at Rodin Museum

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:17:24 -0500

at Rodin Museum

When I was 21 and got the small and simple tattoo on my right...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:01:38 -0600

When I was 21 and got the small and simple tattoo on my right wrist of pattern making notches, I had no idea that 5 years later I’d be one of 4 people who operate the largest CNC fabric cutting machine in North America. Now, rather than cut a notch out with a hand held punch tool, which is what my tattoo is the outline of, I program these construction marks with the tap of a few keys in AutoCAD or Rhino and the machine head slams a rotary blade into the fabric wherever indicated on the computer. The tattoo was originally a semi-ironic gesture; I was lazy during fundamental pattern making courses and sloppy with even remembering to put the notches on a pattern at all. Much like writing on the back of one’s hand to remember something, I had this permanently drawn on to my dominant hand so that I would not forget.

A Master’s degree later, and the aura of slight imperfection and impatience has been removed from patternmaking for me, because I’ve left the drafting paper and french curves for the absolutely precise dimensions and easily modified cut lines of the digital world. I’ve slowly been digitizing all the old patterns I made in undergrad and grad school, and discarding their physical forms. If I want to draft a new pattern, I no longer have to find a work surface large enough to accommodate a large sheet of paper, all the rulers, pens and pencils needed; I just open up my computer and pull up a new file in Rhino. Cutting out facings and interfacings is no longer fraught with worry that the two cuts will not match up just so, because the machine will cut them absolutely perfectly. I can cut out absolutely every single inch of yardage in the most economical nest, whereas before it was all just willy nilly as best as I could eyeball it yard by yard. Case in point, these shades that I constructed, I made every pattern in AutoCAD, and was able to estimate down to within 3” how much fabric I would need. That’s 3” excess on a nest of 20 yards worth of pieces.

Sometimes I worry that I might be creatively stalled in my current occupation, but then I step back at moments like these and realize that while exactly what I want hasn’t happened just yet, holy shit I’ve certainly gone a long way in just a few years already. And then I go back to sneaking my files into AutoCAD on the work computer to cut out and sew my own stuff after hours. It’s rather amusing to see the twee little pattern pieces for a button down shirt be cut out on a machine bed that is nearly 20’x100’, which is larger than the footprint of most Chicago apartments. But it also means that I have the ability to very rapidly cut out and assemble (and working on dye sublimated printing) large quantities of products, such as these curtains, or in the future, Tiny Fix merchandise. T

his tattoo is, and always has been, my reminder to have patience. Once it meant patience on a detail level, now it has come to represent the patience I must have in the scope of my career.

maxistentialist:

brentknepper:

KC, the fabric W I Z A R D

Our friend KC made custom window sails for the new office.