Wednesday, October 28, 2009

when worlds make ride

Pushing Oct 29, Halloween is the day after tomorrow and that means we celebrate the unholiest of holy days as wholly as we can in the form of endless parties overlapping with our friends.

huh?

Right, 4 of them I care to count this year. Two races, a polo tourney, and a party at Adrian's place to which I tend the bar. Dressed like Hef. Before I think too much about the debauchery to be I need to focus on the caps that will be doled out at two of these events. A round of Manting with a side of surprise for the West Side Maniacs at the Halloween Polo Massacre at Scadding Court from 11am to 7pm, and a few DA SHEPPARD tribute caps donated to the Halloween Alley Cat at the Brick Works.



Thankfully all hallows eve is making it easy for me, all I have to do is make some hats tomorrow night, take them a few blocks from home. Enjoy an afternoon of rumpus and some not so mellow velo hello's with the gang and then head home to get into my red velevet robe (and matching cap?), sneakers and a pipe.

pre present and post productions pics to come...

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Absent T ism

Don't spend as much time around the blog as I should, but I make up for my tardy typing with hats that as of late are starting to turn a few heads. Where to start?

How about where I left off...

Darcy Allen Sheppard was killed on his bike Aug 31st, it was a heavy hit to the tight knit community of cyclists in Toronto and particularly the people he worked with. I wanted to express myself in regards to the events surrounding his death but the predominant thoughts in my head were less than productive, let alone legal. After taking a few days to think about it I decided that the best approach would be a creative one, and decided to focus on what I've enjoyed doing for the last year; making hats. I consulted my friend and neighbor Adrian Hayles about some ideas I had and he came up with this:


























Great work Adrian! We turned the hand painted design into a screen for the sake of printing...

I've been selling these hats at $50 a piece, at one event giving every dollar to a trust fund for Al's kids and with regular sales 50% of the money being collected to go into the fund. I'd like to keep this ball rolling as long as possible so if you'd like to show some support please contact me and I'd be happy to see you get one in any colors you like, anywhere in the world.

A few weeks ago I broke out some fabric I picked up last fall, a thick cotton with a fleece liner, Black spots on White. On a random thought I threw some Gold paint on it and I think it turned out pretty sweet. Turns out I'm not the only one who liked it! I handed a few off to my father, Peter Kraiker, to take to a cyclocross race he was going to snap some shots of. One of the people he passed a hat on to was Kristin Wentworth who races for Planet Bike out of Madison Wi. She liked the cap enough to mention it, and WIPT, on her blog post race. Thank you Kristen! I'd love to talk about sending you a few comp custom caps...




























Which gets us to last weekend, specifically Saturday October 24th, for Tom Mosher's Hell Track!
Oh what a blast! Tom is the right kind of guy to be throwing events, he's got energy like you rarely see and did he ever put it in to his event. Tom is someone we met a couple of summers ago, he was relatively new to busting out tricks on his fixed gear but he had talent and it's been exciting to watch him develop into what I would easily consider one of the best freestyle fixed gear riders the planet has to offer, now riding for the likes of Skitch Clothing, Volume bikes, and featured in Bootleg Sessions V1 and 2, and the highly anticipated Revival. When he asked for some hats to offer up as prizes for Hell Track I was extremely stoked and decided to whip up something new, and something that I hoped would be a hit with the fun crowd. My intuition was right as I heard nothing but good things about the hats I brought. I was pretty excited about them myself, I need to make one for my own head pronto.
At the moment I have a single picture of the hat...

though I have full intentions of producing a full run, in fact that's the plan with all of the hats mentioned in this post. I'll be sitting on 15 of each by the end of November and pushing them as far as I can get them.

I think this is a turning point for WIPT clothing, it seems that these caps coming from my head and hands are well worth the time I've devoted to learning how to sew. Always had a creative streak and a hard on for nice hats. The T's are still around too, not sure where we're going to go with them at the moment though.

That's it for now but with the Halloween Polo Massacre coming up next weekend and a request for more prizes, I'll have something else to blog about only a stitch length away.

Ride safe and have fun folks,
Zef K.