The Missoula Tweed Ride

The Tweed Ride has finally come and gone, and after occupying my thoughts, and to- do lists for the last two months, I'm now left with reflections, lots of free time, and lots of tweed in my closet. All in all it was a huge success. We had double the crowd (around 100), and many more activities planned.

prepping! mopping/ sweeping? or pushing the dirt into
 the floor cracks? hard to tell the difference

I was able to put the finishing touches on peoples outfits the day of with I Need Tweed, but let go of the idea of expecting  money from it. We decided this year we'd just suggest people donate whatever they can for what they use.

The doors we put against the bike pit and tied twine cob
webs to

Also I rode a 3-wheel bike for the ride, which looked really neat, but was really hard to maneuver. I'm pretty sure everyone who saw me trying to get up the hills on the dirt path, and take sharp turns resulting in a collision with the curb, thought I was drunk. I would like to clarify that I was not.



Our first stop was for a photo, taken by Sean Kochel, who uses all antique photo equipment and prints on wet plates. It takes him about 10 minutes to get the camera focused (which was a challenge for kids), and then for the photo itself, we had to stay perfectly still for 30 seconds which sounds easy, but in those 30 seconds, every peep makes you want to giggle, and you suddenly get an itch under you nose, or feel like you have to cough. For the photo we also were fortunate to have "Doc" supply his antique bike collection to put in the foreground and make us look more authentic.

 We then went on, stopping for tea twice; once at Buttercup Cafe which was very quaint. The lady who runs this new little cafe set out homegrown apples, pastries, tea, and coffee all for free! The second stop was at Bernice's Bakery for more tea, and we then concluded our ride at Free Cycles where we ate soup, listened to music, got photos taken by Annie Florin, had a fashion show, and gave out prizes.

Bicycle Bit Earrings

Exciting news! I finally and officially have my bike jewelry in Upcycled! I just dropped them off at the shop where they'll be consigned and for sale asap. It's been tons of work getting everything organized, in fact I'm pretty sure it took longer to make labels, a sign, and figure out a display than it did to make the jewelry. I struggle with making big decisions about business cards, deciding on my brand name, and what paper best reflects me in my artist statement. 

To give a bit of background into what I'm making, these earrings are made of scraps from Free Cycles; the community bike shop that my uncle Bob owns/ started. They take in bikes and parts from people, sort them, and then let people come for free and build or fix up their bike. Bob lets me come in and have full access to the shop which turns me into a kid in a candy store. Also I haven’t just used my access to make jewelry, last year for sculpture classes I was constantly utilizing bike parts. Once I took an exercise bike that I found there, and converted it into a yarn spinning loom propelled by the pedals. SUPER empowering. below is a video of it, hard to see but better than a picture. It’s ironic that I’ve used all kinds of bike parts to create stuff, but still haven’t built an actual bike out of them.

But back to the jewelry. I mostly use washers because I love circles, but I take anything that inspires me. I load up my pockets, go home, sprawl EVERYTHING on the floor and start putting pieces together and arranging them to make earrings.

In the last few months I’ve been in contact with Upcycled, talking to the owners every once in a while when I'm downtown. They’re a new little sliver of a shop, and center their values on hand made products made with re-used or recycled materials. They’re a hub for all kinds of local craftspeople, it’s kind of like a mini Etsy store, with the rule that everything has to be upcycled, which I totally, 100% stand for. I'm a believer in getting creative with whatever you have lying around before going out to buy new materials.

So I’ve been working hard the last few weeks on getting everything ready to put in the store bythe 7th because they'll have a crowd coming in for their big 1st friday event showing  “Recreate Designs”.

My list of things to get done in time was basically;

1. get price tags
2. make a sign with an artist statement

pretty simple sounding right? wrong!

here's my step by step creative process of accomplishing the above:

first, I tried to make my own price tags. Using masking tape. this is how they turned out. Not bad, but I felt they looked a little sloppy/ unprofessional, and would be annoying for customers to remove.

I ended up buying 100 of these white tags for only a few dollars.

and then hated the white so I dipped them in coffee

then I played around with stamps and ended up with the finished product here.

For the sign, I took quite a bit of time to type it up. I messed around with fonts, sizes, backgrounds, paper types, and display. My paper choice was disappointing because it was cloth/linen textured, and then when it went through the printer, the texture just melted out. 

This is my end product. I'm not 100% satisfied with my statement display. I went a little crazy on stamps and it's slightly off center in some places but it will do for now. 

Nothing ever stops being a work in progress!!!

The Tweed Project

A section of our set up for "Sunday Streets"

Lately I've been working pretty hard on the Missoula Tweed Ride, which has kept me quite busy the last month and a half. To sum it up, it's a bike ride for which we dress up in tweed, or old fashioned english clothes. We ride leisurely through town on our cruisers, stopping at Bernice's Bakery for free for tea, and end at the community bike shop; Free cycles, for music, dancing, food, drinks, a fashion show of tweed, and prizes.

I've been very involved this year because my aunt; Judy, is a teacher at Spirit at Play which is the non- profit that the tweed ride raises money for. She's had me get involved with all sorts of things from PR to photo shoots. It just so happens that my mother, Judy, and myself all share an affinity for tweed which we hadn't realized until tweed rides came into our lives. My mom is in New York right now, mailing packages of tweed accessories every week, and sewing spats for prizes. We've had fun together collecting tweed this past year from Goodwills, Ebay, and churchsales, and we now have quite a stock dispersed between all our homes. I'm trying to create a rental service called I Need Tweed for our accumulated stuff but due a late start, and lack of marketing skills, it's kind of slow going. The main goal is to have it be well known by next year. In the mean time, we're in need of storage space, an inventory list, and right now we're in the negatives regarding cash flow.

Hats for rent!

So I'm constantly getting calls from judy asking for tweed related favors, which is sometimes exhausting but at the end of the day, an invaluable experience that gives me insight to the cogs and weels of managing a creative business. Right now I'm helping her decorate doors with twine making cobweb patterns. we've got around 15 doors to be lined up against the fence at Free Cycles to hide the bike pit for our party. I'm also expected to set up the party area all day on thursday, and then run some weird last minute errands I committed to, like going to the theater and asking for a bullhorn.

I know once this week is over, we're all going to collapse, but it's been so much fun. I really want to get Judy and my mom to team up and have a shop. Their style is so focused and consistent that it would work really well, unlike my own style which is all over the place. I even struggle with starting an Etsy store because I want to combine handmade, with artwork, and vintage items. It's impossible for me to have a narrow focus when it comes to my market and products. Frustrating!!

Well enjoy the photos I'm posting related to Tweed. My mom, Judy, and friend Janyssa are the models in them and they look supa fine. Why aren't people renting these awesome outfits?!

Also check out the Homecoming Parade photos of bikes. These 3 pictures are of people in the parade representing our Tweed Ride, and I dressed some of them!