The crew at LoveLife are my heroes. They make these fantastic messenger bags made out of re-used vinyl signs and upholstery.

I really credit LoveLife with getting me into working with scraps and apparel, check out my ScrapLife series of blog entries.

Well for half a year (or longer) I had been talk with Roxanne at LoveLife about doing a proper collabo. Something real unique. The idea of a denim bag was always the big concept, but finding denim in the US is a difficult project.

Not to mention finding high quality raw denim… or god help you if it is selvage denim you seek.

Well, after tons of searching, I found 10 yards of a 14 oz denim that I just love thanks to a suggestion from my friend Seth. Selvage denim looms aren’t as big as most common looms are these days, so the roll is about half as wide as most other fabrics. Which means half as much denim to work with unfortunately.

Last night it became official, I dropped the denim off with Roxanne and the process is started, we are doing a collabo. There is only enough material for 7 of these bags, so the first run is going to be limited. Yes I said “first run”. The fact is that I only have enough of this denim for 7 bags, however, I have since then acquired enough selvage raw denim for 16 more bags, but LoveLife have not agreed to anymore than these 7 at the moment. So I don’t know if there will ever be more than 7 made. Plus there is a difference in the denim, the first batch is a darker indigo and 14 0z denim with a black selvage line, my other roll of denim is 12 oz with a red selvage line.

I want a bumper sticker that says “my other roll of denim is also selvage”.

The bags are expected to be released in time for Nationals (the first weekend of October in Chico, CA) and I might try to have a release party in SF when they come out. They will be chock full of little details such as a an outer coin pocket (for cell phones), a padded strap that shows of the selvage line, an inner butt pocket, a chainstitched cuff on the inside of the bag, and a beautiful leather “LoveLove/DOC POP” label on the outside.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Scrap Life project, so I thought it was about time I shared a new one. The Scrap Life projects first started when I took some of the scrap leftover from my Love Life bag and made a wallet out of it, and this project is somewhat similar.

I don’t have a lot of Love Life scrap left, so I also used pieces of scrap from high end selvage denim that had been tailored.

The design is based on a wallet that [redacted] made and gave to me a few years ago. I simplified it a little, but the basic idea of a wallet that folds into itself as show in the pictures was his. When working with the denim I wanted to make sure that the selvage line would be worked into the design.

I had mentioned these denim wallets before, but I’ve been making some really swell ones lately. Check out this one I made from scraps of leather and Samurai Jeans.

I was really surprised at how easy it was to work with leather. It was the perfect size piece, I didn’t even need a special needle, just the same one I’ve been using on denim. My next goal is to learn how to create a tool to brand my logo onto the leather.

Fuckin’ beautiful, aint it? The wallet design itself is largely based on simplicity. The wallets are stripped down to their barest necessity and that helps keep them really thin and comfortable.

The denim is high quality raw denim, as it breaks in it becomes form to fit. Check this out, as the wallet breaks in it gets easier to use and softer and thinner. Closing the lip when tucking in the edge of the wallet can be tough at first, but as it gets used it really breaks in nicely.

Here are some pics of more wallets I made. For these I used bits of mens neckties, upholstry sample swatches, and even some that are all denim. Notice that some of them have selvage lines on the the lip and also have a line at the card holder.

I surprised Sonny with a wallet and yo-yo bag made out of the same material as his bag, including the trim. He posted pics up on his Flickr account (slideshow here). The yo-yo bag is gorgeous, and reversable! I found a black shirt at some yuppies yard sale with this cool yellow skull screened on it, I was surprised that it was basically the same size as the bag would need to be, so I bought it for a dime. The wallet I’m not so into. The material just wasn’t as friendly as what I used for my wallet, but I did manage to get decent embroidery on there. Sonny loves Polaroid cameras, so the pic on the wallet is a Polaroid style picture of Sonny.

When I first got the material I wanted to make a bike cozy for Sonny’s freestyle bmx bike, but decided to wait on the project. Well, last weekend Yaris did some free events and workshops in the city so I decided to go for the “bike cozy workshop”. I got there and when I asked the girl how to make a cozy she showed me Timbuk2 cozy that was fully assembled and said “make it like this one”. I could have done that at home, but since I had Sonny’s fabric there, and they had the perfect trim, I stayed and made my first bike cozy, similar to the Timbuk2 one, but I think I figured out an easier pattern for the next one I make.

So, Sonny’s got a Love Life Bag, with matching wallet, reversable yo-yo holster, and top bar bike cozy. I think that’s more than I’ve done with my own fabric… time to get busy on project #5.

It’s tricky to be a conscious consumer, balancing function and form with cost and ethics. For most of my life I have rocked cheap shoes, but I had decided that if I ever had the cash, I would try to spend my money more ethically. Eventually I bought a pair of Blackspot V2s from Adbusters and couldn’t believe that these super expensive shoes fell apart so easily, so one week later I sent them back… about a month and a half later I got a package from Adbusters opened it up and IT WAS THE WRONG PAIR OF SHOES*, shit. So another couple weeks go by before I finally got my pair of shoes. Within a week the same thing happens, a split in the seam, so bad that I decide to just take ‘em to the shoe repair down the street and get it all fixed. Not the experience I was looking for from the most expensive shoes I’ve ever bought.

But I decide to try again, this time from a company called Worn Again that makes great looking shoes using leather from car seats, used tee shirts, recycled coffee bags, puppies, and recycled rubber. Again, another great looking shoe, that failed to last very long. Within days of light usage the toe on my right shoe started to unravel.

I give up. These shoes are so expensive, and morally I think it’s worth the price for well made slave labor free shoes, but these shoes suck.

There, so getting onto the Scrap Life. After all this heartbreaking with the shoes, I kept thinking about how cool it would be to re-upholster a pair of shoes. Taking a good design and customizing it with cool fabric.

So after tons of research, I learned this would be a virtually impossible task to attempt without the right machine. A little more research and I learned that there was only one place in SF with the right type of machine, and it was Anthony’s Shoe Repair on 30 Geary.

These cats are old school, they know the names of every customer that comes in while I’m in there, like they’ve been working with them everyday for the last thirty years.

Raquel helped me out, apparently she and the Gino, the owner, are the only to employees who do what I was looking for. I explained that I wanted to rip off all the burlap sack from the toes to the tongue and replace it with my calico fabric from LoveLife. “No problem” she said and a week later I came back to check out the work on the shoes and get a peak at the repair shop in the back. Most of the machines where pretty old, including the watchamacallit that Raquel was working with to do the finishing touches (you know da’ kine). It was a singer from the 30’s or possibly sooner and Raquel said there was something fancy about that particular model number that made it extremely coveted.

So now I’m rocking my LoveLife Bag, with matching wallet and kicks! I look like a fool, but I’m excited about all these cool things so far. There’s more to come with the Scrap Life series!

*For the record, Adbusters sent me a pair of Blackspot V1s, and I absolutely love them! I can see why they wanted to keep making shoes, but it’s a shame the V2s where so low quality. The V1s are pretty much a Chuck Taylor knock off, which is a very simple shoe that’s easy to make well. I do recommend this shoe, but wasn’t impressed with anything else I got from them. I’ve even covered up my anti-logos that come on them.. Anti-anti-logo.

If anyone is interested in getting shoes re-upholstered, let me know. I’ll see if I can help out.

I’m-a make a wallet.

Now the wallet design that I went for was based on a gift from my buddy [redacted]. I made it at a craft night at my new friend Rachel’s apartment. She was really cool to let me use her supplies and her kick ass Bernina sewing machine.

This wallet is the first item I’ve ever sewn together from scratch. I’ve fixed and embroidered hella stuff, but putting together the wallet from scrap was an amazing experience. Note the cute embroidered heart… It’s puffy!

That being said, I keep showing it to everyone I see, and I swear to you that absolutely nobody is as impressed as they should be… I mean, I made something from less than something. To me, that’s a big deal, but whatever.

[redacted]‘s wallet design also happens to be my fave, I don’t know if it’s his complete design, or where he go it, but I’ve loved my [redacted] wallet, and so very proud to have my own handmade wallet that matches my LoveLive Bag.

Due to some past experiences, I wanted to wait a few weeks before I started raving or complaining about these bags, and after rocking this one for a month I can finally say it looks like I’ve totally scored.

Unlike my Worn Agains and Blackspot shoes, nothing has started to unravel or tear. It doesn’t look like it’s going to fall apart soon, and I’ve seen a few people rocking their LL Bags and saying they hardly age at all. This bag fits well, holds all my shit, and is completely unique. I dig it.

I don’t have a good picture of the inside yet, but each bag is made by re-using old vinyl signs from store fronts, so the inside looks really neat.

Scrap Life? I asked Roxanne at LoveLife for the leftover scrap from my bag so that I could use it for a few projects. She gave me about 1/4 of a yard of this awesome calico (upholstery?) material. So over the course of the next week I’m going to post the results of this project online for you guys to check out. Some will by mine, some will be with the help of friends. Stay tuned for Scrap Life #2 soon.

edit: view the rest of this series-

Scrap Life #2 The Wallet

Scrap Life #3 The Shoes

Scrap Life #4 Sonny’s Bag