chicote

30s leepros after a quick wash on our last day travelling in mexico. I love the colour and fit of these more the older the get, probably about 6 months of actual wear now.

Took a motorcycle trip out around the Washington peninsula this week, stopped at some lovely places that I didn’t photograph… had soup and an odd homemade rune psychic reading by the welsh owner of a co-op in clallam bay, got some really good homemade blackberry & salal jam, saw the (supposedly) world’s largest cedar tree at the end of a labyrinth of logging roads, and then rode 3 hrs home they a random 40 degree cloud front that was pretty brutal lol. But not as bad as it could be!

Those look great on you Young, especially with the higher cuff.

Here’s a couple fit pictures of my Encinitas that just came in. they are really similar to my tcb 40s from the thigh down, with a slightly lower rise, but it’s actually at a more comfortable place for me, just reaching my hips rather than sitting on top of them. the waist is a little loose but nothing a belt can’t handle. The denim and details are on point with the exception of the patch (prefer the paper one) and the lack of leather backings on the fly buttons like they used to have. Overall I’m really happy with this fit and will definitely be wearing these a lot.

Mind our chaotic apartment lol, it’s like 350 square feet and we are still figuring out where all our books, clothes and art stuff are supposed to go!

This week I’ve been going through and tuning up some of my machines, and thought I’d share a few.

First is my Willcox and Gibbs single-needle chainstitch machine, from 1906. I’ve shared it before, years ago, when I first got it, but I’m starting some new sewing projects so it’s getting pulled out, dusted off, and cleaned up a bit before getting put into use.

For those of you who’ve sewn on traditional machines, I know you know how frustrating it can be to properly set the tension of the two threads when working through multiple layers or different types of fabric. It’s horrible! I have a 50s singer domestic machine that can sew through leather but I don’t even really bother because the tension settings are *so* imprecise. With this machine, I never have to bother. It has an automatic tensioner! In a machine that’s now 117 years old - can you believe it? You’d think we would have worked out a way to get these onto new machines since then, but this is still the only one I’ve found where I don’t have to bother.

Part of the ingenious design of this machine is the single-needle chainstitch itself. Rather than use a bobbin thread, the needle meets a rotating hook under the machine, which is timed at just the right moment to grab the thread from the eye of the needle just as it returns back to the top of the machine. The thread then loops around, catches on itself, and makes a link of a chainstitch - identical to how you’d sew it by hand.

Supposedly, the inventor of this machine, something something Gibbs, was a teenager in the late 1870s when he came across an ad for a Singer domestic machine in a newspaper. He couldn’t afford one himself, but was struck by inspiration and set out to make his own version to work with. The only problem was, the ad only showed the top of the machine, and Gibbs had no idea there was an entirely separate bobbin mechanism underneath until after he’d come up with this single-needle workaround in its place. It’s an absolute dream to work with, easily the best and most consistent sewing machine I’ve ever used. It takes eleven drops of oil into various holes around the machine when it sounds like it needs it but has otherwise never needed any maintenance whatsoever. Truly a testament to the simplicity and genius of the early mechanical age.

Plus, it has nice little gold leaf paintings on it too! :p

And the whole machine is about 9 inches tall by 10 inches wide, and weighs maybe fifteen pounds. Here’s a photo of the machine in its case next to a record for reference.

Next, I’m re tuning my tattoo machines for a little guest spot I’m gonna do at my old studio next month. These aren’t all my machines but they’re my three favourites.

Clockwise from top left is an early 90s Mickey Bee shader, a custom single needle liner made by Jim Rosal of Yakima, WA, and a 2006-ish more traditional liner by Juan Puente.

I’ve had each of them for at least five years and hundreds of tattoos and they’re usually pretty consistent… the shader’s starting to run really hot during longer sessions and might need some new wiring, and my Rosal liner is right about to burn through its front spring, and I guess the puente hits a little too hard for what I like to use it for. But they are all perfect in their own way. Electromagnetic machines like coil tattoo machines really have their own personalities; they can run completely differently at different altitudes, with minute differences in voltage or quarter-turns of the contact screw at the top, or if I hold it too close to someone’s big iron (magnetic) gauges, ive learned, lol. And the differences between how these three machines run mainly depends on the geometric relationship between the size of the frame, the length of the armature bar, the angle and length of the contact screw, the weight, length, and angle of the front and back springs, and so on… all tiny differences that make each machine suited for entirely different purposes.

You can see in the above photos the relative distance between the contact screw (at the top) and the end of the armature bar (the big iron bar in the middle that the needle slides onto). The shader, top left, has a long, light-gauge spring, so it rebounds slowly and lazily off the contact screw, making the machine both run slower and also much more sensitive to the pressure of a person’s skin pushing against it. It makes it easy to do really soft shading, and it’s gentle enough that you can go over the same spot several times without damaging the skin. Compare that to the liner at the bottom, which has a short, stiff spring, meant to pound the needle downwards with basically no resistance. That’s for when you’re putting in a big ol’ outline and don’t care how much your client screams! Just kidding, it’s also pretty soft, but it definitely doesn’t have the same amount of give as the shader - it’s far too stiff to bend much at all. The other liner is right in the middle: it’s a mid-length, very thin spring with a deliberate bend put into it, which makes the skin response really snappy. A single needle has basically no resistance when it enters skin, unlike bigger needles, so if your machine doesn’t have a lot of give to it, it can push ink much further into the skin than intended, and cause ink to “blow out”, or spread beneath the ideal dermal layer just a bit below the surface, and make a thin and detailed design heal mushy and hazy. The little bend in the front spring allows the needle to pull back much further than either of the other two machines, so you can get a lot of variance in the width of your line without either punching too deep through the skin or causing the ink to fall out as it heals.

Hopefully that wasn’t all too boring to read, lol. These machines are so fun!

I do think a lot of older members on this forum are still around, or at least passively participating in this hobby; but I think a lot of people’s life circumstances have changed over the last 15 years. I got my first pair of nudies when I was 15 with money I made flipping nike sneakers, lol, and I’m 27 now, and buying new clothing isn’t really something I ever think about anymore. My partner and I have been trying to get rid of some of our clothes, and are mostly doing trade-ins at the local vintage shop… we’re up to $400 in store credit now, cause we never see anything we want to trade for!

But for the people who were my age now when they were getting into denim 15 or 20 years ago, I imagine most of their life circumstances are completely different. A lot of people have families or careers picking up, peoples’ bodies change and their collections don’t fit them as well, or, like some of y’all said a few weeks ago, maybe there isn’t enough new variation in the repro markets to keep people’s interest over such a long period of time. I think that’s all to be expected when you’re part of any hobby over multiple decades.

But what I do think is different about this community is how it’s shaped all of our mentalities. the thoughtfulness we all have about our clothing, our appreciation of historical detail, construction techniques, irregularities and the magic that lies in things made with traditional techniques on old machines. There just isn’t much being made like that anymore, in any industry, and coming to know and appreciate all of these qualities is what makes me sure I’ll remain interested in this small section of the clothing world as long as it’s still around. And I imagine that’s true to some degree for a lot of those who aren’t as active here anymore. There might not always be as many things to talk or think about these days, but we’ve all had our lives and perspectives shifted in some meaningful way through being part of this community, and that’s not something I ever want to fully let go of, or take for granted.

My partner and I catered a Peruvian dinner this past weekend… both in our nicest black denim, thankfully!

We made halibut, shrimp n scallop ceviche… (and maracuya pisco sours)

papa rellena (mashed potatoes stuffed with sautéed chicken and peppers, brined olives and duck egg)

and a cinnamon pisco goldenberry cake with some homemade cashew ice cream.

I know my food photography leaves some to be desired lol, it was our first run of some catered dinners / pop ups we’re trying to start doing… if you know anyone in Seattle who wants some good Latin american food hit us up!!