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^ oh wow I wish i was your secret santa recipient, and the gift was a few of those knishes!

I ate the first one, and the last one. Sorry, man! I wish I had remembered to take a photo.

Woah, did they play all of them?? I am trying to figure out which one to give my daughter this year. At this point, she doesn't have Princess Mononoke and Porco Rosso, but there's a lot of fighting in them. I'm looking forward to The Secret World of Arrietty coming out...

Agreed, sweapea! E and I were with friends every night this past weekend. My Roys and I hosted one stop on the neighborhood progressive Christmas party last night, which was a blast. A lot of my friends live nearby, and I met several new people. There were probably 30 people packed into my tiny house! Lots of drinking and eating... I made my famous smoked salmon and swiss knishes, which were a big hit. Too crazy, forgot to take photos. E stayed up late, and I barely dragged her out of bed to walk to school this morning. I promptly walked back and made a second coffee.

I wore them twice this year with the RoyxCone contest going on. They'll get a lot more wear next year. I think I have only about 9 months on them.

How've you been, man? I heard some crazy story about how you don't wear jeans anymore.

Hmm, some of the non-indigo denims for the 44s look very intriguing! I just might have to call tomorrow...

I always took it to be secret until it arrived? Maybe people could post what was sent to them if they want, and then we can guess.

For instance, if someone received a large box of discarded German porn, it had to have come from roy6.

Oh, that's terrible to hear, Paul! I know someone here who has one, but I haven't talked to him in ages. Maybe it's fallen apart by now.

Speaking of motorcycles, I realized I didn't take a single photo of my Roys on my old BMW

Yeah, let's see it, Andrew! That's one of the reasons I organized it

So many beautiful photos, Daniel! It looks like such an amazing adventure. I think my favorite photo is the second to last.

By the way, you can still get new Royal Enfields these days. Made in India since UK production ceased in the 70's, but you probably already know that.

Jacket and Roys look great, fre$co. I've always liked that EG shawl pea coat.

Other than the initial soak, they have had two handwashes and one (the most recent) hard wash in blazing hot water. The last one pulled a lot of the loose indigo out as well as some residual starch. they are nice and soft now.

Was your hard wash in the washing machine, or by hand? I think I'll do one last hot wash before the year is up, but I'm always very wary of throwing them in the machine...

Thanks, guys! It's a great step up for me in the long term. It's always nice when the superiors above are so supportive that they'll work to make something like this happen.

RNR- the jeans are looking great! How many washes have they had? Judging from the overall fading, I'd guess about a half dozen, but do you usually machine or hand wash?

Well, in the interest of keeping the career improvement ball rolling on this thread, my Roys and I are going to go take a couple of friends out to lunch to celebrate. I just now spoke to my Dept Head who informed me that I've been promoted! I was an educator (staff), but once the papers are signed in a couple of days, I'll be an Assistant Professor (faculty)!! What a nice early Christmas present. I can't stop smiling...

Yeah! Congrats Ray and Mike!!

I hope your first day on the job was a good one Daniel!

RoyxCone at 11 months and four washes

Oh, and 11 months and four washes!

I was fairly close to IKEA, so I swung by and picked up a few little things for my house (and some chocolate). I was amazed to see dining tables and chairs for 3x the price of the ones I just picked up, at nowhere near the quality.

I forgot I had these photos from the other day on my phone. I've been trying decide on furniture for my new house. It's small, so a lot of what I have doesn't really fit. Plus, the new house is more mid-century modern than the old Victorian that I used to own. So, I settled on looking for vintage mid-century teak furniture from Denmark. The rich color of the wood is appealing, and I love the simple design and clean lines. I managed to find a dining table and four chairs for a very reasonable price via Salt Lake City's online classifieds, so I made a last minute trip down to pick them up. I'd say they fit well in my living/dining area.

While I was down there, I had to hit my favorite pizza place for a couple slices. It's the closest I can get to real NY pizza out here. It even looks like it's in NYC.

Right around the corner is may favorite vintage mid-century furniture shop.

Mmm, an Eames rocker would look nice in my living room! It was a bit pricey for me at the moment, and my little VW was already packed full. I'll have to come back for that one...

They also had an Eames lounger, which was well out of my price range. It was nice to see one in person, though.

A little further down the street, I found some antique shops that I hadn't visited before, including a toy shop that just blew my mind.

I picked up a little family of porcelain Siamese cats for my daughter's stocking. She has more little porcelain animals than she knows what to do with, but I knew she'd love them.

At some point, I unknowingly managed to slice my finger and got blood on my Roys. This shopping is serious business!

Ooh, I'd probably say midnight P coat, but yeah, you need to layer with both to stay warm. They're both very wind resistant. A warm sweater under either keeps me warm in winter.

A couple friends and I went back to campus tonight because we heard there was a bit of a folk concert, so we thought we'd check it out. As I read through the list of acts, a name sounded a bit familiar. One of the bands was called Seafinch. Well, what do you know?? It was indeed our very own Seafinch! I really enjoyed his set, and had a moment afterwards to go say hi and chat a little. The promise of beers near the end of the year was made...

(oh, that's a crap photo, but that's really him on the right!)

Yeah, I have a 39" chest and a 40 fits me great.

I really need to wear my MM more! I'll tune up my bike this spring and commute to work on it more, now that I live a lot closer.

Personally, I teach field courses for adults. They focus on the major ecosystems of Utah- watersheds, deserts, and mountains. I'm going to start teaching kids again soon, which will be fun. The student's thesis involved assessing knowledge gain and attitude change resulting from a particular environmental education program. She had some interesting results, and she did a great job presenting them and answering my questions.

That's video is hilarious. It took me three listens before I could figure out the lyrics.

Today, my Roys and I sat on the committee of a graduate student who was defending her thesis. I almost wore trousers and a tie, but I thought the casual nature and overall enjoyable qualities of the Roys would put her more at ease. She did just fine, but not before I grilled her with questions. Pre-defense question writing in the library....

Thanks, corter! I get a mention somewhere every 4-5 months, which boosts orders just enough that I can't keep up. Part of me would like to quit my day job to work on all the new designs in my head, but Etsy doesn't have much of a 401K plan...

That's impressive, Nick! Since we're tooting our own horns, one of my card cases was posted on the blog Well Spent (last item), formerly known as Commerce with a Conscience

Thread is a huge mystery, unless you have it all figured out, and then you still might not understand any, as different brands are using different indicators of size.

I normally use Barbour 5ply for most work. I sometimes use 7 ply, but I think I prefer the 5 ply. I also have 3 ply, that I use on smaller items in thin leathers and I don't think I have had problems with it breaking.

I got a sample from the US once, and it was a 7 ply, however it wasn't as thick as my Barbour 5 ply.

I think you need to know, that there is another number to the ply. It typically says 18 or 20 after the ply. This is the thread count. This means that a 5 ply/20 is thinner than a 5 ply/18 thread - as this would use thicker threads. I know this doesn't really make sense, but I'll try to find an explanation for it.

Where are you ordering from?

Thanks for the explanation. I am ordering from Royalwood Ltd in the US, and they sent me a sample card with all of the colors and weights. 4ply looks perfect for wallets, but I'll use 7 ply for belts. They don't have a thread count. I tried knotting and breaking the 4ply by hand and couldn't, so I think it will work well. Best of all, I can match thread colors to all of the leather colors that I use, and they'll make for nice contrast stitching if I want to mix up the colors.

That's a fantastic lineup of judges, mr. roy6.

My Roys and I won a tasty dinner at the local wood-fired pizza shop by guessing on FB that this pile of ingredients:

Was going to become this delicious minestrone soup:

To go with my favorite pizza- spinach, mushroom, and artichoke.

Exciting, huh?

^Beautiful!!

Thanks for the thread advice, guys. I tried the Tandy awl thread that Hollows recommended, and I thought it was a bit difficult to work with. I can't find Seiwa thread anywhere, so I think I might stick with waxed linen.

Simon- have you had any problems with 4 ply waxed linen breaking? I'm about to place a rather large order, but I haven't used anything thinner than 7 ply before.

Reading back through the first few posts on this thread brought a smile to my face. I remember all of the excitement seeing the jeans when they arrived. It was a bit like, well... Christmas!

It's crazy to see that denim brand spankin' new again.