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.