Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.
In one of my favorite colors for the season, this felted bag is just right to get you through the blazing hot days of summer. With this much color, panache, and humor you’ll just be forced to survive the heat so you can continue to admire it. Most awesome. By Cofygirl.
Another great find in the Try Handmade Inbox…
studio k: aspiring to replace the common with something more beautiful
I am an architectural designer with an interest in all aspects of design. The New York City Map Cuts was my first large art piece. It was created to simplify the daily image of the Manhattan map that every New Yorker sees repetitively throughout any day. By simplifying the map into just an image it revealed much more information than a map crowded with words and symbols and color ever could. The information of city planning, the nature of the city block, and the importance of open space is greatly emphasized in my map cuts, especially the images in white. I love the idea of making a familiar object/image even more beautiful by simply taking away the unnecessary.
Derringer Friday is a duo of transplanted southern gentlemen who like to wear nice things. Like so many independent designers I know, Scott Permar and Lukas Smith got started because they couldn’t find anything in stores that satisfied both their style and quality requirements.
Derringer Friday is about neckties, because that’s what Scott and Lukas like to wear. Although neither of them come from a design background, they know what they like, and they know what looks good. “At the end of the day, it comes down to taste rather than any specific skill,” says Scott, and he’s right. After all, many of the most successful menswear designers never set foot in fashion school.
I first noticed Derringer Friday ties at the Temporium, where their unusual colors and interesting shape caught my eye. As always, I noticed the fabric first: high quality wool, linen and seersucker in bold plaids and florals. The combination of texture, color, and pattern was really interesting, and a far cry from the boring “power ties” on the collars of most men in DC.
The most interesting feature, however, is the guillotine tip, a design detail that really sets Derringer Friday ties apart. They are constructed using an unlined, four-fold technique that Scott and Lukas devised themselves, after some research and trial and error. Their goal was to create a tie that would drape nicely and hold up well over time, all while looking stylish, and of course, not like everybody else.
The company came about as sort of a happy accident. Scott and Lukas have been friends for years, and have always been interested in clothes and style. After talking about starting something together for a while, they took the plunge by experimenting with necktie designs, and Derringer Friday was born. Their first collection debuted in April 2010.
All the ties are handcrafted in Washington, DC by Derringer Friday’s talented local production team. The most popular ties, not surprisingly, have been the brighter, more colorful designs, which also happen to be the ones that Scott and Lukas enjoy designing the most.
There are plans to add cufflinks and tiebars to the collection in 2011, but for now you can find handmade Derringer Friday neckties at their online shop, and at Alter Brooklyn in New York City.
Papaver Vert: Patty Benson started Papaver Vert in 2007 making her small apartment shared with her husband, into a small creative studio in Northern California. Based on form, function and bold color, Patty’s work utilizes the time consuming technique of crocheting and wet felting wool to create tactile pieces with a contemporary twist.
Learning how to crochet a few years ago, she immediately found a medium that combined her love of wool with her love of home decor. Feeling that home accessories shouldn’t just be limited to ceramic or glass, and that felted wool doesn’t have to mean something old-school, she loves the idea of taking the ancient technique of felting to design something entirely new.
Patty loves that wool is a renewable resource and she stands behind a non-mass produced sensibility. Each piece is lovingly handmade in her studio and she figures the more attention put into the craft, the better the quality, the longer it will last and the less need to buy more, more, more.
Crackly and smooth, brilliant color and blazing neutrals. These bowls are sensational.
Handmade pottery by misslo.
