Merry Chirstmas!

Co-design Project - Collecting materials!!

There was a break after the last post about co-design project; in the meantime, I was busily collecting materials for making prototypes.

What a surprise, my industrial wool felt supplier in Germany told me that they were not going to produce the felt in the rest of this year, which I use mainly. So I had to look for other companies.

That German company was the only one among other companies that started business with me even though I could order small amount of materials at one time, in early time of my business in 2006. So I had been purchasing their products since then nevertheless there were some troubles with them, for appreciating their attitude. But without materials I can’t work. I needed to search for other suppliers in a hurry.

Luckily, one company out of four produces the same felt in thickness, color and quality, being able to ship immediately. Oh dear, their prices are even cheaper - turning misfortune into a blessing.

And then, collecting materials continues.

The next is leather.

Because I am unlearned in leather craft, I asked two of my Finnish friend to introduce leather companies and asked to show me samples. Meanwhile I was searching for leather suppliers which could sell small amount of leather.

Then what kind of leather can be good?

Where I live in is an area called Lapland in the north Finland. Talking of leather that we can get here is … the leather of that animal … yes, it’s reindeer, attendants of Santa Claus.

You may say that you feel bad to use leather of reindeer that works for Santa;), who is giving dreams to children, but for us, the locals, reindeer meat is one kind of the delicious meat. Reindeer leather is produced along with meat, not like mink or fox fur, which are produced only for garments. Do you know how smooth reindeer leather is? Reindeer leather is very fine and excellent.

And we have another kind of leather, elk skin.

In Finland, elk-hunting season opens in autumn. Elk meat is not sold in market places commonly, but it’s still possible to get it and we eat once in a while. The taste is gamy and a little bit different from reindeer. Elk is big deer like a horse.

Because reindeer leather is expensive, I looked for a company which sells elk leather first, but as I thought, they said that they were not able to sell small quantity of leather. But they have 2nd-quality leather which has small scars or even holes that they can sell several pieces at a time to me.

Well, 2nd quality…. This time, I’m going to use leather for back lining of wool felt laptop cases. Can't it be more reasonable to use 2nd-quality leather than expensive, high-quality one? Although it’s 2nd quality and can be seen, it must play an important role of preventing static electricity. I asked the company to send the leather with worst condition as a sample for my evaluation. What kind of leather is coming …?

The next is a zipper.

There was a comment from a customer that a zipper should be installed to the laptop case because it’s the most durable fitting among other fastening fittings.

I’m thinking that selecting zippers is a very important design point. I’m thinking to make such a simple laptop case that what you see are only materials of wool felt and leather in design itself. So fittings like zippers become conclusive factors of product impression. I can’t compromise on that.

Thinking about convenient use of a zipper, there should be two zipper sliders facing each other (when it closes). And sliders should be without paint so that they will not be worn off, and I want to make original pull-tab using wool felt or leather. A type of zipper called coil zipper is good because it fits flexibly on corners. I want to integrate the design of long zipper for a body part and short zippers for pockets.

I luckily found one company in Asakusa, Japan, which can make such lots of my wishes come true, even though I want to buy just a few zippers for making prototypes first - the company can make original zippers from 1 piece! This company pushed me forward in this project, contrary to my negative expectation that getting zippers would be difficult task.

Since the biggest difficulty in my business in Rovaniemi is collecting materials. By contrast in my home country Japan, in Rovaniemi it’s difficult to get things with reasonable prices and amount needed for my small production. So I had been avoiding using zippers for my products especially. But I may use zippers in my design willingly in the future thanks to this company.

Did you notice that there was no product which was using zippers at all in the collection of handmade, industrial felt laptop cases sold online that I posted in this blog? I wonder that a zipper is such a material for small craft businesses that if you look for exactly what you want, you would be in trouble.

And and…

I was taught that there was a thread called a conductive thread by the comment in my Japanese blog. It’s a thread being able to conduct electricity, which can discharge static electricity if you touch with condition of being electrified. Isn’t it possible that I can make a case or bag that can prevent producing static electricity by stitching the conductive thread on a pull-tab of a zipper or handles of a case? I could find the thread in an online shop in Japan, too!

A couple of days ago, I got the elk leather. I want to try making a prototype by it first. I will post the working process next time!