After two months of preparation, I’m glad to announce my newest project is finally rolling. I’ve started doing tailoring for Kiya’s high end denim store Self Edge. Offering chain stitched hems has been very important to Kiya, so he contacted me to help him find an industrial machine. He had already picked out one, that turned out not to work for hemming, but luckily we found a fantastic Union Special at Wai’s Sewing Machine Repair in Chinatown. I think the price was great, and James even helped teach me some basics of using an industrial machine.
The Union Special now sits in my apartment, between my studio and my drafting table. I’ve been sewing a lot during the last year, but using an industrial machine is such a different experience that it’s literally like starting back at ground zero. Even finding thread was been way more difficult than I expected.
I’m thinking that once I get the fundamentals down, working for Kiya will be a fairly easy gig that I can totally do on my own time. It sounds pretty stress free, right? I thought so, at least up until I did my first jeans yesterday. I had been practicing on several scraps before I moved on to my first actual pair… Let me tell you, cutting up a $400 pair of jeans is stressful enough, but when the owner of the jeans is the guy that has invested heavily in the same machine you are tailoring with… wow.
I spent about 7 hours working with the machine yesterday, and another 6 today. I found several interesting features on it today, but I think there are still tons more to learn about. Hell, even threading the thing is a nightmare.
All that being said, I think 8 jeans I did today turned out great and I’m feeling way more at ease than I was this morning. I pick up and drop off orders on Mondays and Thursdays btw.
Astute readers of this blog will probably know what I’ll be doing with all that new scrap! After all, that’s how I got the gig from Kiya in the first place.
More pics of the machine can be found here.
Leave a Reply