The annual Christmas party at my gallery is Saturday, December 13 from 6-9 PM. Joni Harms will be playing during the party this year. If anyone lives close and can attend you would be welcome.

Lisa

Hello Awl.

I haven't been on in about a year because of a divorce and a move from Alberta to Saskatchewan I am now looking to reconnect.

I am also looking for some equipment to open my own shop. I have 2 patchers but I need a finisher and an outsole stitcher and some sundry other things to make life a little more pleasent.

If anyone is selling or can refer me to someone who is I would appreciate it.

Guy Shannon

Prince Albert

Sask

I want to personally wish each and every member of the Crispin Colloquy a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous and Happy New Year.

Thank you for making this the best forum to learn and discuss and preserve this wonderful Trade...

Lang may yer lum(s) reek...



Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

And yours as well, friend!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all good night.

Paul

Hard times over here in 'Oz'. Espesially in Victoria. About 4,000 firefighters, over 750 homes and, to date, 173 people dead in the worst fires on record. Saturday had places recording highest temps. on record; up to 48oC (about 120oF). And the fires started.







The blue star is where we live. On Sat. it was all hazy, but Sunday ( when things were in full swing) the sky was as clear as a bell. We're 150kms from the centre on Melbourne.

They're still fighting tooth and nail. Expect it to be a couple of weeks. The towns of Marysville,Kinglake West and Kinglake have been taken off the map; 550 of the homes and 40plus deaths are from the Kinglake area.

It's making everyone re-think how we approch this sort of thing.

Duncan

Duncan,

It's so interesting to see a map of the US juxtaposed over the map of Australia. I knew that Aus. was large but I didn't know that it was as large as the US. If the climate changes work just right Australia might end up being a green and very lush country in the next 1000 or so years. Or maybe it already is...I have this image of the coasts being pretty green and everything beyond the black stump being dry and sere.

BTW, your photos over in "Tools of the Trade didn't post. I was interested in seeing them. Maybe you'll try again?

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

Duncan,

Please know that you guys are in our thoughts and in my prayers during these devastating fires. FYI the fires are on our public TV news programs AM and PM, pretty good for self centered ol' USA.

I know it's going to take a little more than a bucket to do any good around there, but, for your entertainment, Steven Lalioff is making some nice leather fire buckets. Google him and check out his website?

Hope you are safe and sound ... and not too stressed out !

Best,
Huia

Thanks Huia.
This is re-writing the books for all of us. The refrence point used to be the 'Ash Wednesday' fires of 198(4?) where 60+ people died across South Australia and Victoria. This time they were saying how things were much better organised, people knew what to do, had 24hr emergency broadcast radio station.
That was Saturday and the worst casualty we knew of was a man with 50o/o burns (still horendous for him). By the end of Sunday we had overtaken Ash Wed. 181 deaths and 1,025 homes to date.
At King lake the fire front covered 25kms in 15mins. That's 100kms (60miles) per hour.

DW; Green coast, brown interior, roughly speaking. Victoria has had 12 years of below average rainfall (read, drought), and your comments remind me of an Aussie comedy skit I saw years ago where an English lady and an Australian 'Digger' (soldier; esp. WW1) are lost in the jungle. The lady is talking about the lush beuty of England. The Digger talks about how everything in Australia is shades of brown, and how "in the summer, the big brown comes down from the North". Ends up complaining about how his pencil set at school had had 3 shades of green but only 1 brown.

I'll get over to tools and pop up the pictures. I'd run out of time at the library before they were uploaded from the memery stick.

Cheers
Duncan

Hey DW,
Just to give an idea of our size verses our population (approx. 20 million people).
If you have a look at the first map, in the center is Alice Springs, where I grew up and ,ironically George Kolef had a shop at the same time. If only I'd been older, known what I wanted to be when I grew up , and knew he was there
It's a town of 30,000. There are really only two roads out, that a normal car can drive on (as in sealed and not needing high clearence and winches ) ,to get to other towns and the coast (a minimum of 1,450kms away).
Ayers Rock (always associated with the Alice) is 434kms away! A 4-5 hour trip.
The next town north is Tennant Creek, around 6,000 people (I've marked all these in), 505kms away. Katherine ,5,000 people, another 650kms.
To get to Mt. Isa, the next town/city (on your way ,the only 'direct' way, to the east coast. Refer to 'winches' note above) you have to get to Tennant first, then east another 600ish kms. Towns are only 3-400kms apart after that, until you get close to the Queensland coast where they might be only 100kms
If you go south from Alice the next town is Coober Pedy (opal mining), 5,000ish, and is over 600kms away.

There are *no* towns east or west of Alice.

I spent quite a while a week ago trying to explain to a Danish tourist (with maps) this situation, and that, apart from a pub/hotel with fuel every 200kms or so, there isn't anything in between ( quote "There are no cities? Just nothing?" she asked. The distance to Ayers Rock was the size of Denmark with 5million people in it, she told me. Now I have trouble getting my head around *that*).

The whole Northern Territory has a population of around 350,000 (mostly in Darwin)and is a single voting electorate (covering desert/arid, through to tropical/monsoonal).
Victoria though has approx. 4 million (not sure how they fit them all in), 3 of which live in Melbourne. In fact, of Australia's 20 million residents, over 50% live in it's 8 capital cities. I don't know why

Out of time.
Hope this has been enjoyable.

Cheers
Duncan

Duncan,

I am always amazed by Australia...if only by the extremes--the most poisonous snake in the world, the most poisonous spider, the most extreme looking animals, the great outback, the fires, the coast, the great barrier reef, the platypus.

I've often thought I wouldn't mind living there or in NZ.

We do know something of Australia here...if only from the telly. And Steve Irwin (bless his soul).

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

DW. Clunes is a nice little place, and the housing is fairly cheap. Make it the Bootmaker Capital

Mind you, they don't have snakes in NZ, so that's a bonus

From what I can gather (from the radio as we don't have TV;as in just our family. Australia as a whole has television ), Steve's shows did better overseas than here. I think there's a lot more of him since his death, and certainly Bindy's everywhere.

Onward Ho to the other Threads.

Cheers
Duncan

Happily introducing to you 14 years old shop apprentice/helper Mr, Liam Connolly,who have chosen to help in my shop for the summer,but he is already making plans attending the shop when he goes back to school in the fall.

Hi there

I have started a Facebook group called Bespoke Footwear and would love to bring shoemakers and shoe lovers together informally... no selling or procrastinating, just making friends and keeping in touch.

Check it out and see you there hopefully.

Phil Taylor

All...

I know this is just a tiny bit self-promotional and I beg your forgiveness for it...but back in 2004(?) Oregon Public Broadcasting came into my shop and spent about seven hours filming and interviewing me.It was such a long drawn-out affair that my daughter catered lunch for the crew.

The result was this seven minute clip. I didn't know it was available on the Internet until just the other day when one of my shoe customers posted the link on another Forum.

It's strange to peer into the past five years and see yourself from a somewhat more objective point of view.

OPB video

It's a bit of fluff but kind of fun.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

Dee-Dubb,

That's one of the best interviews I have ever seen! Great Job!
Randee too!

"popes, poets, scoundrels, and presidents sons" indeed. Cool that your wife is involved in the business. Well done.

Respectfully,
Kieran

Your voice sounds different than the one I have in my head when I read your posts...

DW,

Great video! It rekindled fond memories of being in your shop a few years ago.

PS This video must have pre dated the arrival of Rosie? I know my dog "Ceilidh" is an essential fixture in my workshop...

Happy New Years to you and Randee

Jake,

Thanks, old friend. I'm not sure whether that's a result of skillful editing or if I really was that silver-tongued that day.

Kieran,

Well, speaking of silver-tongued, I've always had a nasal twang that comes from having grown up in rural Missouri, I suppose.

Sean,

I'm not sure but if Rosi8e was with us then shoe was very new. I don't think we had her yet, however. She's a nosy-parker if ever there was one.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

DW,

I just watched the video interview. You said it all, as you are so good at.

I also enjoyed seeing Randee given credit for the wonderful work she does. You guys are a great team.

I'm proud to be a student of you both.

Paul

DW,
interesting interview and as Paul said, you are good at it.

I have never seen the use of the nail when you pre punched the hold fast, whats the trick for?

Janne,

It is something I developed to aid my students in spacing the holes. Eventually I liked it so much I just kept using it myself. I humorously call it a "cribbage pin."

I follow Thornton's advice and, in the forepart, I angle my holes to be parallel with the tread line as much as possible. That means keeping the awl pointed towards the heel a bit on the lateral side and pointed towards the toe on the medial side of the forepart. Eventually, of course, the turn around the toe has to be made and all that goes out the window.

Using the bent nail I can see the entrance and the exit of the previous hole. That allows me to space my holes at a little less than 3 to the inch on the feather (sometimes a lot less in the channel) and make the next hole parallel to the previous one. Or maybe a little more angled...or less...etc..

It's no big deal. Someone with your experience (or mine, for that matter) surely doesn't need the nail. But like I said it helps the students. And now it's a habit.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

DW,
It's a good one, I can see how it would be helpful. I will keep in mind and show it to my students.
Thank you!
//Janne

Totally unrelated to any of the above and more in keeping with this topic...

Has anyone else seen Avatar? What a great movie. for the first time in either my life or my wife's we are gonna go see a movie again while it is still in the theaters around here. But this time in 3-D.

Tight Stitches
DWFII--HCC Member

But don't tell me, that you didn't check the first scene, when they take those new, blue bodies, if they have shoes (they did), and what type.. (I know. I am sick.)

Hello all, I ran across an incredible article in the latest New Yorker magazine (Jan 4th) about van Gogh's ear. It talks about his move to Arles and about his desire to create a utopic community of artists who would live and work together. Gaugin agreed to live with him, but ended up leaving soon after possibly cutting off van Gogh's ear with a rapier. Rejected, van Gogh descends deeper into madness and isolation, creating some of his most fantastic and memorable work. In the end he realizes that a physical community of artists working together is nearly impossible to achieve.

One of my biggest fears of leaving my corporate job to make shoes is going from a nice little community to potential isolation, working alone for hours on end, maybe going broke for a while. I just want to do it, though. The author of the article writes that it's easy for the rich to take risks with their money by spending millions on a van Gogh, just to get a taste of the thrill of living on the edge. But those same people hardly have the courage to risk their lives the way van Gogh did to live for his art. So I'm thinking, damn, the least I could do is take a small step out on a limb. It's a really good article.

Oh, one more thing... the one place van Gogh found a supportive community of creative people was in the madhouse

Happy new year!

Neka

p.s. DW, Avatar was amazing! I loved it. Not only was the action and storyline great, but the styling of the 'natives' was cool - the feathers in the hair and the jewelry, etc...