Career Change!

A personal update today: I just finished week number two at my new position as a Textile Design Engineer at Secant Medical. While I’d love to pontificate lengthily about what I’ll be making in this new opportunity, I’ll be pretty much keeping it under my hat out of respect for confidentiality and the fact that I prefer to not talk directly about my work. In a nutshell: I’ll be designing woven, knit, and braided textile surgical implants and it’s wildly different than designing jacquards for office furniture. I’m alternately excited and overwhelmed… Challenged for sure.

So it’s a slight hiatus here at textilesmithing as I get settled into my new position and new location. (goodbye, Michigan. hello again, Pennsylvania) Please stay tuned though. It won’t be long until I need to write again about the textiles that excite and inspire me.

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Joseph Kittinger

51 years ago today, Captain Joseph Kittinger stepped out of a baloon at 102,800 feet above sea level. Wearing only a space suit and a parachute, he fell for 84,800 feet before his parachute deployed. He unceremoniously set multiple records that day and confirmed his permanent unofficial title of ‘bad ass’.

wikipedia

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Textile Book Club: Spacesuit:Fashioning Apollo

Over at TXCHNOLOGIST is a great interview with Nicholas de Monchaux, author of Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo. This book has been my summer reading material and it is a fascinating look into the science, engineering and politics behind not just the Spacesuit but the whole space race. Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, armor, book, clothing, craft, Customization, engineering, NASA, protection, Space Suits, Textiles | 2 Comments

Wind Powered Vessels

Its been a satisfyingly productive and active summer. Last night was an enjoyable lakeside wedding at a yacht club. Yacht clubs always seem to have pictures from the days before big petroleum consuming private watercraft. So today for your pleasure, a group of turn of the century high performance watercraft propelled by textiles. Courtesy of Library of Congress. Continue reading

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Roy Denim

THIS is Textilesmithing. Roy makes jeans. He doesn’t slap his label on a sweatshop manufactured piece of shoddy workmanship and charge a mint for them. Roy smiths jeans. He takes denim, thread, rivets, and buttons, and with the great skill of a craftsman, constructs a solid pair of jeans using Machinery he maintains with his own hands. Roy is a clothing artisan.

More at Roy Denim. His philosophy is right on.

(If you can’t see the video above, here’s the direct link to Vimeo)

[Roy Denim via Fashion-Incubator]

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Beili Liu

Yesterday’s post on Akiko Ikeuchi‘s thread volumes reminded me of Beili Liu, who almost stole the show at ArtPrize last year. (ArtPrize is a curious new Annual Grand Rapids phenomenon that I’ll write about when it comes to town again) Continue reading

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Akiko Ikeuchi

Akiko Ikeuchi creates vast delicate geometric volumes out of knotted thread. Continue reading

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Magnetic Curtain

This magnetic curtain captured my imagination today. The geometric structure with a grid of magnets enables you to place, form and bunch up the curtain as you see fit. Functional object meets origami meets amazingly fun toy. From Designer Florian Kräutli Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Curtains, Customization, design, engineering, Magnets, pattern, screen, structure | 1 Comment

Warren Seelig: University of Lexington

Warren Seelig sent these images of the work he and Sherrie Gibson installed at the University of Lexington just last week. This was too good not to share. Continue reading

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Milestones and Benchmarks

Sometime last night or in the wee early hours of this morning, Textilesmithing reached 5000 clicks during this, its 6th month of existence. Its a Milestone, big for now, hopefully a speed bump in the future looking back. Its been fun watching this thing grow, and I’d like to thank everyone that’s been supportive and everyone that has shared this site and its posts with others and everyone that came to this site without even knowing me. Thank You. Continue reading

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