MAYDAY! 2010

http://mayday2010.ca/

On Friday April 29th WIPT Studio will host the kick off party for Toronto's 2010 MAYDAY! events to raise money for the Bicycle Messenger Emergency Fund (well worthy of our collective donating power!), running Saturday May 1st at Dufferin Grove Park.

Events include:


ALLEYCAT
U-LOCK PICK UP
FOOT DOWN
CHUG-OF-WAR
TRICK COMPETITION

POLO will be taking place at Scadding Court, south east corner at Dundas St. W. and Bathurst St.
Pick Up played Saturday from 11am - 5pm, Tournament Sunday from 10am till the sun has set.

AFTER PARTY! @ Cinecycle, 129 Spadina Ave.

and the night before the goal is to get as many people hammed on my back deck as possible.

Music provided by DJ Sawtay of Behind The Front Visual Arts Studio, with some special guest from the big bike fam to take the mic!

BYOB or buy from the bar...

Come out, have fun with your friends, help us raise some money for possibly the likes of you, and kick off a weekend as important as it is exciting!

The studio is a busy place when production has a purpose! Those shots are from the night I was making something fun for Tom Mosher's Hell Track. The products were received well and their offspring may end up in a permanent line, but I haven't had a whole lot of time to devote to the rounding up and out of those deets.

As of late (lets call it a month) I've been focused on making this happen (go on, click the link...)

Adrian Hayles and I decided to dive right into bringing Indelible Friends to you, and it starts with a sample clothing and art sale.

This coming Saturday and Sunday, the 19th and 20th of December 2009 we'll be hosting our first exhibit at Behind The Front Visual Arts Studio. 212a Adelaide St. W. unit 301, Toronto.
On hand will be a collection of current prints worked in an array of color, a dozen or so hand painted original art hats from 3 local talents, t shirts, canvases, vegan cupcakes and more!
This is a CASH ONLY sale, but please come out even if you only intend to browse and enjoy some treats that are healthy for body and spirit.

I'm very excited about this, and will have lots to talk about when I can get my brain and hands away from the work table...

Hope to see you this weekend!
Z

A few weeks ago my good friend Glen Hofman,

general velophile and avid polo junkie playing with the West Side Maniacs here in Toronto, paid me a visit at the studio. Lucky for me he was inclined to stick around for the afternoon and composed a sweet hat with some of the fabric and paint I had out that day. I'm thinking about doing a limited run of these, call it the Spokeman Special. If you have an interest, just drop a line to wiptclothing@gmail.com.

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...

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.

Greetings friends, it's been some time since we touched the blog, thought I'd take a moment to fill in some of the gap. Crissy and I have relocated from the Scarborough sprawl to the heart of the city. Living just a few blocks from our favorite textile and culture outlets is a dream come true for the two of us, everything we want to tap in to is right here in our back yard.

I'm writing this now as I prepare myself to hit the sewing machine for the 3rd straight day, assembling a small army of hats for some friends to take to Tokyo for CMWC 2009. In the not so distant future we will be updating our information here about our products, as well as the details of our summer. 

On August 31st a cyclist was killed in a terrible accident that has shaken many of us in Toronto. I won't get into the details of the accident now, I'm sure to write about it before long, I do want to say that there will be a Darcy Allen Sheppard memorial hat produced in a limited run with the proceeds going into a trust fund for his family. The first cap in this line was conceived yesterday and given as a prize to the winner of a race in Al's honor, hand painted by Adrian Hayles . The hat was gorgeous (pictures to come), I'm going to start with 30 units and the price will be in the ballpark of $50. Again, I'll be updating these details in just a few days. 

In the mean time, I have to get back to machine. Japan is just around the bend.

ez

Zef <3

Velosocial - Now's the time!

Okay so this is going to be the really big one and we want as many cats as possible to join the fun! We're bringing in our homeboy YEAH!FILMS to film the night! Glow in the dark shirts, hats, and vynil stickaaz

INFO:
Start: May 14 2009 9:05 pm
End: May 15 2009 3:05 am

VELOSOCIAL at AUGUSTA HOUSE
152A AUGUSTA AVENUE

Featuring: DJ's BUTTERNUTS, BLACKSMITH, & PAUL REVERED
spinning the best in house, hip hop, techno, mashups and other danceable favourites

$5 Pints of Amsterdam on tap, drink specials - Select shooters for $3.50
Bike videos

We'll be vending along with some CMWC merch

Open Mic with prizes for crowd favourite!

Hot bike riders as far as the eyes can see
Nearest Intersection:
DUNDAS @ SPADINA
Location:
AUGUSTA HOUSE
Phone:
4169778881
Contact:
SUNNY D

Come out and show off your bike and support<3