La primavera e' in arrivo.

The flowers are blooming on the trees outside of my window which means spring is almost here. This is the daily view from my "banco". It would not be accurate to say spring "has arrived," because here, not unlike home, the temperature will be 18 degrees one day and drop to 5 degrees the next. Celsius, that's right, it's official. I will no longer be doing the conversions but here's a hint: www.worldwidemetric.com/metcal.htm.

So you know what that means... spring snowboarding at my new home mountain, Abetone.

Beautiful bluebird skies in the Appenines.

Burton Italia set up shop to demo 2010 gear, so I gave the G Twin 150 with Scribe bindings a test ride. And by test ride, I mean I picked up the board at 11AM and returned it at 4PM. When I returned, I asked them if I could keep it for just a bit longer, and then realized that they had already packed everything up and mine was the last to go into the truck. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never picked up so much speed in my entire life. It was like riding on a feather. I love my Neversummer but had no idea what a stiff setup I was riding, until now.

That's me - sunbathing on the lift.

I am going to enjoy at least one more weekend at Abetone before spring "officially" arrives. I bought a (very used) mountainbike last week, so I am sure I will have some post-snowboarding adventures to share with you if my bike does not get stolen before I get to ride it. 

The moment a bag is born.

 

There is a very precise moment during the construction process when you begin to see the bag come to life. It is not a pre-defined moment, and the style of the bag will dictate when it will occur. Every part of the process leading up to that point is anxiously executed, awaiting this turning point. This is the turning point of the second handbag style I completed. Pictured above is the "interno," interior. As you can see, I learned how to complete an interior pocket, featuring the zipper that you saw previously.

The form on the left is the "interno" with the "fianco," side, attached. The flap on the right side of this part is called the "contrapatina," which is the under side of the internal part of the bag and is covered in leather or suede. The form on the right is the "esterno," exterior, which if all goes well, should mold perfectly around the "esterno" when complete. The small "bandaid-like" patches you see are pieces of "salpa" that enclose and reinforce the magnetic closure. The black salpa is pierced with a screwdriver to allow the parts of the magnetic clasp pass through, almost like a staple. These are covered in "salpa" so you won't see the metal from the exterior of the bag, while allowing the clasp to stay in place over time.

This is one of the most crucial moments in handbag construction: The point where the "interno" and "esterno" come together. There is a very precise method of walking these two pieces together that can sometimes (like in my case, last week) involve blood, sweat, and tears. You must first apply "mastice," glue, to the entire perimeter of both parts. Then, you have to start with the center point of the "fianco", pinching the edges together while you make your way around the perimter of the bag. It is like a waltz, with a specific series of steps that your hands must follow. You must move your hands in a fluid motion to mold the parts together. It is not as simple as just gluing them flat, you must glue following the form that the bag will finally take. If there is a part that puckers or falls short at an "angolo," corner, you must un-glue, re-glue, and start all over again. Of course if you do this three, four, or eight times, the leather begins to get weak and will break. Speaking from experience, there is a fixed time when each leather will just not give anymore. This differs with suede (averaging two attempts), fine garment leather, like lambskin (three, maximum) and coarse leather, which is much more forgiving. Of course you might be thinking that all of my handbags will from now on be coarse leather, but coarse leather has it's own limitations. There are other parts of the process such as sewing on the machine that are more forgiving on the suedes and lambskins, which means you must really know the skins and the tolerance each one will have for each part of the process. 

Equally as crucial as the assembly described above is "turning" the bag. We call this "girare" in Italian, which literally translates to "to turn, to spin". Once you have assembled the esterno and interno, it is time to sew them together ("spin them" on the machine). In most cases this is one continuous seam around the perimeter of the bag, and you can imagine the pressure of getting this seam right. Once the needle punctures the leather, there is no turning back. If you mess it up, there is a very good chance your mistakes will be prominently displayed on your final product. The most difficult for me (prominently displayed on two out of three of my bags) was arriving at the corners, of the "fianco," side. Again, there is a specific movement that your body and hands must make to allow the machine to flow over these points. Don't forget, the needle is passing through two pieces of leather and two pieces of "salpa," both of which have been "rimbocato," edges having been wrapped, with "mastice," glue, totaling at least six layers of material.

I noticed something last week, after "Acci" nearly ate one of my bags. I should mention that as much as I would like to, I cannot always blame it on "Acci," our machine. Nine times out of ten it is me, my mental state, and how well I have constructed the bag that will determine how it will pass through. It also highly depends on the shoes I am wearing. If you remember back in the beginning I said I have to "pump" the pedal instead of putting my foot down and sewing straight through a seam. This is especially true when it comes to rounding corners and finishing 90 degree angle edges. If I am wearing shoes that do not allow me to feel the pedal easily, the sewing becomes much more difficult and I am not able to start and stop as fluidly. Therefore, on sewing days I must remember to wear shoes with flexible soles so I can pump the machine delicately.

I eat an apple every single day. I buy them from the same woman in the market, who knows exactly what I want and exactly the quantity I want on any given day. She knows my schedule, she knows when I will be out of town for the weekend, she knows just about everything. I have introduced my mom, my teacher, and those of my classmates who are now equally as obsessed with her fuji apples as I am. My classmates have found that it is absolutely necessary for me to eat my apple before I begin sewing. When I run into a snag, the first question always is, "hai mangiato la mela oggi," "have you eaten your apple today?"

Arts and crafts with leather.

You can generally tell how much work I've done if you take a look at the floor around my workspace. Here are scraps from my second handbag style, which I am in the final stages of finishing now (and my pretty shoes that I bought in the Paris flea market last year). By the end of this week, if all goes well, I should have photos of three new handbags to share with you. 

We took a break in our usual course of studies to experiment with different treatments you can do by hand to re-finish and enhance leather.

This is an ancient Italian method of burnishing leather. You heat the metal tool and rub the leather in a circular motion to create a slight "burnt" effect. We learned another ancient method which is frequently used in shoemaking, of wetting shoulder (thick) leather and molding it into shape. Once it is dry, it takes the form of the shape you've created until you wet it again.

Acrylic paint can be applied directly to the leather.

We also experimented with mixing pigment with "ambra cera," amber wax. It creates a beautiful effect on the skins and allows the color to blend in naturally. This works best on light colored leathers. 

There is a family-owned store in Firenze called Zecchi where you can find all kinds of materials to do this kind of work. The storefront was once an old "bottega," workshop, called the Colorificio Toscana. It was then re-opened as a mesticheria in the earlier part of the 1900's. You can find "mesticherie" all over Firenze (never when you are looking for one, however). They are the Italian version of hardware stores that sell everything except for the thing you are hoping to find there. Of course, if you can't find it there, you can find it in the store down the street owned by the brother of the mother of the wife who works in the mesticheria. In the 1970's Zecchi became more specialized on selling materials for fine arts and focused on research for preserving traditional artisan materials and techniques. Today they are recognized worldwide as experts in their trade.

Heaven meets Earth in Chamonix.

"The human mind thirsts after immensity and immutability and duration without bounds but it needs some tangible object as a point of rest from which to take its flight something present to lead to futurity something bounded from whence to rise to the infinite. This vault of the heavens over our heads sinking all terrestrial objects into absolute nothingness might seem best fitted to awaken the creative powers of the mind but mere space is not a perceptible object to which we can readily apply a scale, while the Alps seen at a glance between heaven and earth as it were on the confines of the regions of fancy and of sober reality are there like written characters traced by a divine hand suggesting thoughts such as human language never reached."

-Simond, Narrative of an Ascent to the Summit of Mt. Blanc on the 8th and 9th of August, 1827. 

This is exactly what you want to see when you open your eyes at 6AM. Countless centimeters of fresh snow, and the cafe and pain au chocolat that followed shortly thereafter. Unfortunately the 20+cm made for a very grey day with litle visibility, but when the sun came through the clouds the following day we were in heaven. Literally. You will see what I mean momentarily.

In the meantime I will take this opportunity to demonstrate just one of the many reasons why riding is better in Europe. Salads served in a jar. Apres ski with vin chaud is another... and oh yeah, the Alps.

View from our house in the hills of St. Gervais, and the day the sun decided to grace us with its presence so we could actually see and appreciate where we were.

View from my Neversummer which has tracked as many miles as I have.

View from the top of the Telepherique Les Grands Montets.

Photo courtesy of Agatha Wasilewska, hostess and guide.

Here we are, about to make our descent into the clouds.

My first harness. The harness allows ski patrol to air lift you out of something you might fall into while riding off-piste. Thankfully, I did not need this, nor did I need to activate the avalanche device in my pocket. If you want to know more about avalanches I know a guy who can tell you all about his three experiences with them within a 24 hour period (Hi Willy!)

View from the summit of Grand Montets, elevation 3,295 meters.

Our descent towards the glaacier.

As you can see it was a gorgeous, perfect day. The snow was still light and we had this part of the mountain to ourselves. This allowed me to scream "wooooooooo!!!" at the top of my lungs nearly all the way down the mountain.

My guides scoping out our next move.

Glacier d'Argentiere.

Further admiration of the glacier.

Our lines in fresh powder, courtesy of Agatha.

Mi first zipper... and my first big mistake.

Here are the new pattern pieces for my next handbag. This style is slightly more structured than the previous style, and I will also complete three of the same. While making three of the same style might sound daunting, it allows me to work with different materials to familiarize myself with the behaviour of different types of leather. For this particular style I chose black leather (again), black suede (again), and red lambskin. When I use suede or a garment weight leather like the lambskin, I have to cut two of each pattern piece and glue an additional layer to each to give it more substance. This allows the leathers to pass through the machines without getting "mangiato = eaten" as I like to say. 

The first stage of inserting a zipper is gluing the zipper to the salpa. I honestly had no idea how much "mastice," or glue, was involved in the process. Every single seam has glue on both parts. So for example, I will describe the seam where I apply the zipper. First I put mastice on the salpa and the fodera (lining) and glue them together. Then, I put mastice on the zipper and the salpa, and glue them together. You can see above there is a very specific angle in which you must turn the zipper in order to prevent it from being too visible when you open the pocket. In order to do this I had to re-mastice the zipper, applying glue to the end of the zipper tape and the salpa. I will add more photos later so you can see the final product of the zippered pocket.

And here we have it, my very first mistake. I think my head was elsewhere when my instructor Mao was walking me through this part of the process. Each bag has 2 of each of the pattern piece you see above, which make the "fianco," gusset, for the bags. Each piece required me to do the following: Cut 2 in leather, which actually meant 10 pieces in total, since the lamb and suede require that I cut double. Cut 2 of each in fodera (lining), 6 total. The suede and lamb requiring double thickness must be glued together with the "lattice" (spray glue machine). Then, all of the leather pieces must pass through the spaccatrice (to make them thinner and more pliable), then the scarnatrice (to trim the edges to prepare for rimbocare, wrapping). Then, the fodera and leather component must be glued together (with the mastice, not to be confused with the lattice spray glue). Finally I would cut the CORNER EDGES of the fodera and leather "preciso preciso" in order to prepare these pieces to properly attach to the other pieces of the bag.

Before I continue with the devastating turn of events, I want to pause to explain why the term "preciso preciso" is very important. When we begin to cut pattern pieces the patterns have a small margin of error built into them. Some of the pieces have two pattern pieces, the first to cut the materials, and the second to cut "preciso preciso". While all of the pattern pieces are cut from the same modello, there is a chance that after cutting the leather or the salpa of one of the bags, my hand or the material might slip caushing a 1mm, or 0.5mm deviation from the original. At each stage of the process, you begin to work more directly with the pieces you are cutting, rather than the pattern. As the bag progresses, you might make minor adjustments to the piece upon which you are working, while referring back to the modello only as a guide. When Mao tells me to cut "preciso preciso" it means to pay great attention to the pieces to make sure that the lining and leather, for example, are exactly the same, that there is no room for error and I have to take care to not make a mistake. 

Well. Wouldn't you know it, while my head was in orbit, I accidentally cut the entire perimeter of every piece of the fianco, (which in hindsight, makes no sense, as this leaves no material to connect these pieces to the other components), instead of the CORNER EDGES ONLY. This meant that I had to repeat the entire process I outlined above. This was an entire half day of work and I was absolutely miserable, but this is my (second, if you've been following my blog regularly) gentle reminder to always focus on what I am doing. I promised myself I will not make the same mistake twice... or 12 times, as the case may be. 

ACCIDENTI!

Planes, trains, and crossing borders.

Last week I logged some serious mileage on my journey to meet my friends in Chamonix to go snowboarding. I took an overnight train from Firenze, and what you see in these photos is the ride through Martigny, Les Marecottes, Chatelard, Vallorcine, and Argentiere. The greatest thing about these trains is that everyone on them is a skiier (with the occasional snowboarder). It's the French version of the MTA to service the mountain towns.

The train ride is surreal, as it winds through the mountains it feels like you are going through a simulator.

The photos below are for those of you who have not had the unforgettable experience of flying over the Alps during a daytime flight, or for those of you who, like me, are on a connection from NY and at this point are either sleepwalking or sleeping. As beautiful as the ride was through the Alps by train, after a long week of riding I was anxious to get back home and the 1 hour flight (as opposed to the 10+ hours by train) was simply irresistible.

View from starboard.

View from port side.

Now that you've seen how I got there and back, check the next post to see how I spent my time there. For the record, for the first time in history, I was scanned in at the airport in Firenze. There is a one in a bazillion chance that it will happen, and it happened to me. I handed over my passport and smiled widely as the man behind the window asked if I had a visa, and if I was a resident of Firenze, to which I proudly answered yes to both questions.  It is now time for me to once again give my heartfelt gratitude to the woman at the NY Consulate.