mizanation

now time to single stitch the inside seam of the leg.

this requires a foot change and also a thread change.

kuniyoshi-san uses tweezers to pass the thread through the machine.

the front and back are now sewn together.

the right way is align the denim perfectly so that the denim catches the whole height of the stitch.

he showed me the wrong way to do an interlock stitch.

notice that the denim is not aligned perfectly, so the denim is only catching about half of the stitch.

the other pant leg...

here, he explains that because of the pull of the machine, you have to offset the top and bottom very slightly to get an even seam. every machine is different he says, and you have to know your machine to do a good stitch.

kuniyoshi-san said that someone that has been sewing a long time can tell if someone else has used their machine--even if they don't change any of the settings. he also says that he can tell if someone has used his scissors. he can't explain it, he just says they feel different if someone else has used them.

kuniyoshi-san showed me how they interlock the pant legs in kojima. you lean back and let the machine pull you forward. this is the technique all the old-timers use in kojima.

next, it's time to interlock stitch the inside leg. interlock is similar to overlock, but, it adds another chainstitch. it's used on the inside seam of the pant legs.

time to sew the front to the back.

first, overlock the top part.

volante is a portuguese soccer term for defensive midfielder. some teams have more than one volante, hence the name "double volante."

back in the day, "volante" was the name given to the brazilian military forces that hunted down and killed brazilian bandits, the famous cangaceiros.

dang have it like a fraternity of denim...you must go to the camp to speak about the camp type shit haha.

miz you area amazing you should put all your pics and make a nice book!

oh ya and i still got that bandana you sent me im waiting for a new pair of jeans so i can put that shit in the back pocket...love the detail on it.

glad you liked the bandana! i forgot to tell you how they make those bandanas. it's a process called "bingata" which is method of dyeing that is particular to okinawa. each color is dyed separately using stencils.

you can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingata

MIZ

thanks for the info. it's good that most of them are Chinese immigrants since i can speak in the Chinese dialect fluently. But the question should have been rephrased since the question was meant to ask how long it took for him to perfect in the "art of denim" making. But you have already answered that.

A year of stay was only reflecting on a foreign exchange program through one of their universities and since living in a dorm or so, little pay wouldn't hurt me at all. but then again, he did take at least 10 years to perfect it.

I WANT TO GO TO CAMP!

i've asked kuniyoshi-san before about whether he feels he has perfected his craft and he feels like he still can improve--even after 10 years. in fact, recently, one of his old mentors visited him and they worked on certain techniques. for him, it's a lifelong process.

if you can speak chinese, japanese will be a little easier to learn. a good portion of the spoken language originates from chinese and much of the written language is chinese characters.

today, i will talk to kuniyoshi-san about the camp idea. he was originally thinking about a one-day denim workshop. since japan is far away and expensive to get to, most people on sufu won't be able to get to japan at the same time. so, instead of a denim camp, maybe a one-day denim workshop is a better idea? that way, whenever someone visits japan, they can swing by okinawa and spend one day learning about denim.

cool stuff, busta.

Thanks for this fantastic level of detail that makes this one of the best thread on SuFu.

I guess by the maths, he means that in fact there just looks like a stagger - aren't the top levels of stitching level at the edge of the central seam? The right hand merely looks higher, because it's the stitching on the left that continues further. AM I making sense?

you know what? you do make sense. the seams are not out of line, the just look like that because you can only see the top layer.

i took too pieces of paper and drew lines to simulate the yoke seams. then, i made a little lap felled seam down the middle. if i line up the two seams, the left side always pops out at the top. when i line up the top, then, the left side "seam" is much lower than the right. so, yeah, i just proved that i'm a nerd.

Also, could you ask kuniyoshi-san why Levi's jeans seemed to overlap the right-hand half over the left in the 20s and 30s?

i will ask him when i see him on tuesday.

how long did it take for kuniyoshi-san to learn how to fully make jeans?

i wonder if I can just go to japan and just work for a year

just a note: not trying to be rude about your question, just letting you know how kuniyoshi-san learned all this stuff. to learn how to make jeans is not very hard, you can learn the whole process in a couple days. but, to do it well takes many years. please read below!

kuniyoshi-san has been making jeans professionally for over 10 years.

he worked at what many consider the most prestigious jeans factory in the world located in kojima district, okayama, japan.

he has sewn, in part or in whole, over 300,000 pairs of jeans.

now, about getting a job in a japanese jeans factory...

first of all, getting a factory job is probably gonna be very hard. no factory is going to hire a guy with no experience who just wants to work there for a year. they are not going to waste their time training you for the whole year so you can leave before you know anything. also, you work for years at a time at certain stations (pockets, hems, etc...). at the end of your year, you would only know how to make one or two sections of the jeans.

plus, you don't speak japanese or read kanji. communication would be almost impossible. not to mention people in okayama jeans factories have specific "factory speak" which is unintelligible to even japanese folk.

even if you somehow manage to get a factory job, you will be paid very little. even japanese people don't take these jobs anymore. almost all the workers in the factories are now chinese immigrants.

BUT, kuniyoshi-san and i have been thinking of making a denim camp. where you would come stay in okinawa for a week or something and learn the basics of denim from kuniyoshi-san. you would make your own jeans by yourself here. when you are not making jeans, you could chill at the beach or go drinking at the many bars here. this is much better than toiling away in a factory for years.

if anyone is interested in this idea, let me know and i will try to make it happen!

so, i checked all my jeans to see if they do the stagger on the yoke seam.

turns out most of my jeans don't have the stagger. but most importantly, though, my two pairs of vintage redline levi's DO have the stagger. also, my SC1947's do (which is good since they are supposed to be the most accurate copy of the original 1947 501).

i called up kuniyoshi-san and he says that many companies will cut off the excess at the top. also, he says it's possible that a company might use a custom attachment that somehow corrects this. but he says, if they are using a standard lap fold seamer, than the top will always be uneven if the yoke seams line up.

historically, he says, the stagger also helped make that part easier to sew.

perfectly straight:

the stagger on the yoke seams insures that the top will be level.

voila! a perfect center seam. nice and straight and perfectly aligned at the top.

kuniyoshi-san again ripped the seam apart and sewed the two sides together.

here is the seam with the right side slightly lower.

you would think that the top would line up perfectly, but no! kuniyoshi-san was right, there is a huge misalignment on top.

also, when you look down the line of the seam, it is crooked. you can see that it pulls to the right. this is not good.

so, he tore the seam apart and said he would show me the WRONG way to do it!

he resewed the seam without the stagger.

kuniyoshi-san shows me something interesting about this part of the jeans.

notice how the left side is lower than the right side of the seam. he says this unevenness is absolutely necessary or else the jeans won't line up right.

even though the seams are staggered, you can see that the top lines up flush.

he explained to me the physics of why this is, but i actually didn't really understand.

now, this is a perfectly sewn center seam. notice that the top of the jeans are perfectly aligned (even though the left side is lower than the right side--i will explain this later). also, notice how the stitches are nice and even--even over the hump where the yoke seams meet. this requires timing and experience on the seamster. a unskilled seamster would have left smaller stitches over the hump because they didn't give the fabric enough push.

kuniyoshi-san checks the line of the seam to make sure it is straight. it is perfect.

when kuniyoshi-san gets to the yoke, he stops and hammers the yoke seam down with a mallet.

time to finish strong:

you have take care when making a lap folded (or felled) seam. if you rush and make a shallow fold like below, you run the risk of making a weak seam.

this is how you should do it. the bottom fabric is deep into the attachment:

the machine is very strong, simultaneously folding and stitching through thick layers of denim.