Joshu+Vela

I can hardly believe that it is already August.  After a small disaster with the dye man two days before I was supposed to come home, I extended my ticket again.  Our fabric was delivered with every color off to the point we had to reject it.  With much of the new samples waiting on the new fabrics, it was really good that I stayed a bit longer.  As it was, sending Noah off last Thursday was pressured.  Luckily, most of the fabric colors were fixable, it just took some extra time.  Now, I’m just pulling together the last projects, making sure the plates are all still spinning.  Bali is the equivalent of Discount Fabrics for leather.  Even the high end leather suppliers will not know if/when they’ll get more of a certain thing.  Yesterday, I went to get more of something there had been plenty of last week, and just like that, someone had bought up all remaining 700 square feet of the stuff, and they wont have more for a couple of weeks.  Bummer.  This trip has been so full of adventures, lessons, and learning!  It has been so fun to see the new styles come to life– I can’t wait to show them off when I get home!  I’m treasuring the warm air and sea, the food, and the friends I’ve made while I’m here.  Sorry I’ve been a bit out of touch!  I’ve had major email breakdowns.  I look forward to being home and showing you what has come from the last couple of months.  B 

Here I am, bundled up for my trek to Gianyar to visit the dye man.  Temperatures dropped to a chilly 75º so I had to layer up.  It seems to always rain on the east side of Bali.  Its about 45 minutes on the motorbike  dodging dump trucks and dogs.   The natural dye process is pretty labor intensive.  Here, one of the guys rinses our fabric for one of the many dippings.    

In order to get a clean cut on the leather, we had a knife made, kind of like a big cookie cutter.  There is a sandal workshop near Selvi’s where they have a hydraulic press, that has stamped out the leather bits beautifully.   

Here is Noah making the specification drawing for one of our new pieces of hardware.  He’s good at making technical drawings!  We’re carrying through the hearts theme.  A dear friend of mine said that he likes the idea of wearing a heart somewhere, as a reminder of how we’re all connected.  Rumi said that we’re lucky if our hearts crack open every day.    Okay, so there you have a peek into my hippie heart!   

Hi Friends, I have a request:If you have a quote that is inspiring, or rings particularly true would you send it to me?  I’m doing a special project, which I’ll tell you all about when I get home!  Thanks so much!B 

It is really an ambitious thing it is we’re doing here.  

After a week of combing over the smallest details such as stitch length and color, label placement, buckle construction, foam thickness, everyone was anxious to get started on production.  

The tailors get gumption loss when we ask them to re-stitch the sample of the strap connection for the fifth time.  We’re being much pickier about the quality than what they are used to.  Neither Noah nor I are interested in creating a bag of mediocre quality, and it can be hard to explain that we not only need the stitching to be straight, but we need the threads to be tied off by hand, so that a after a few months of use, the they wont pull out.  

We realized that the copper center of the buckles wasn’t strong enough, so we had to have Rifky, the metal smith, replace the tongue pieces with brass.   For the black color way, we had them silver plate and then oxidize the hardware, creating a slightly more rough and vintage feel, which I love.

Now that the training process is over, everyone is more relaxed.  The bags look great, and we’ve added a couple of little branding touches that tie the details together.

Detail samples  

It feels good to see the stack of finished bags piling up on the shelves.  

Half done 

We thought that the best way to make sure that the right laptops fit in the right bags was to make some computer-sized wooden block templates.  The mission was fruitful!  Selvi took me next door to a place that sells lumber, where we got one of the employees to saw a board into the right lengths.  By right lengths, I mean rough approximations, as he was using a rusty hand saw.  Then Selvi and I got on the motorbike and visited about six different carpenters who, for reasons varying from power outages to broken machines, to had other work to do, couldn’t build our blocks.  Finally, we found a guy in a furniture shop who agreed to the project.  I am never quite sure what is getting communicated or not, so when I came back two days later to find glossy shellacked  mac-shaped blocks, I was thrilled!   

Today was spent packing and moving into a new place to live.  The little bungalow next to our friends Marcelle and Evan was being reclaimed by the land lord, so we were off to new places.  I’m in a clean little room that is much closer to the beach, which I’m excited about.  Noah is in a room in a balinese house that is between a rice field and the Kerobokan prision, and very close to the workshop.  This week, we’ve been working with Likun, one of the tailors from last year, to make samples for the new styles.  He is a super amiable guy who does great work.  We also have been working with Raji, another tailor who does clothing.   Right now, there is so much I’d love to make, and just not enough time to do it all.  It is easy to get a little ambitious with all the styles!  Every day there are little victories and little setbacks.  Sometimes they feel big.  We have been completing bags, and with all the detail refining, they look great.  We chose a more matte black leather, and oxidized silver hardware that really pulls the black color way together.  Seeing the black bags come together is really exciting!  Today, we realized that an entire bag had been sewn up in the lighter weight canvas, which is a day of work and a whole bag worth of materials.  Ugh.  Its times like this that it would be really nice to speak the same language as our tailors.  I’ve been learning words here and there, but what I really need is some formal lessons.  ”See you later”  doesn’t quite get it when what you want to say is, “Please, take extra care and check everything three times before you sew it!”  When I try to speak Indonesian, I realize how much I know how to say in Spanish.  Here are some more photos:   

Hi everyone - welcome.As you may or may not know, Bodhi and I are in Bali working on some new bags for you all. We are currently half way through stitching our first order (F08) Many thanks to all of you that ordered bags! We have finished the natural dye process and are now turning our efforts to designing the S09 addition. We will be adding some new bags and a few wallets - all in the natural dyed cotton canvas. We have just spent the month improving most of our processes and refining some of our work styles so that we can create a bag that will be long lasting as well as more simple to cut and sew. here are some pics of the process:Leaves used for our brown dye.The leaves are boiled for hours to extract the dye.Here is the fabric after one of the many dips into the dye extract.  Back at the workshop, Noah checking the color of the handmade hardware with the canvas. we are stamping leather this time to get it all perfectThe two tailors working on F08, Pak Zaini and YonoOur production partner Selvi, and Bodhi at the workshopPak Zaini cutting handles