We're at Coventry Transport Museum

We will be taking a stall at Coventry Transport Museum for their craft fair on November 14 & 15. We've never visited before but it sounds like a fun event and we have a bit of a penchant for transport related imagery.

We did visit an amazing transport museum on the North Island of New Zealand, just in case you happen to be passing. It's the Southward Car Museum fairly near Wellington.


We called in and fell in love with it. A vehicle we that particularly stuck in the mind was this gangster vehicle (below), imported from the states with reinforced bullet proof glass (ie glass about an inch thick) and authentic bullet holes.

Ways to avoid working no.1

Chris our landlady (the shoemaker) has just got a new puppy, she is black and tiny and incredibly sweet. The as yet unnamed puppy always seems more fun than say an afternoon of sticking badges together.


The pup seems to like leather so perhaps she can be trained to stick leather badges together. Or is that illegal?

Lets do the Math (s)

This week we did some Grading; creating different sizes of the same pattern. We were standardising the Wax Cag patterns. The cag is really Ed's product but after five minutes trying to Grade he was crouched in the foetus position, rocking back and forth (metaphorically at least) so I offered to help and promptly created an extensive spreadsheet.

Traditional grading is to my mind a very inexact science but after a lot of me promoting the mathematical case and Ed looking rather unhappy we eventually sorted it out. Or at least we did in theory we're actually going to create the new patterns on Monday. So that's something to look forward to.

Woodbridge Vintage and Contemporary Fair

One of the fun things we do is visit different fairs around the country. Although a bit more hassle it's always a bit more exciting doing an extra curricular event.


The most recent event was the Woodbridge Vintage and Contemporary Fair in Suffolk. The organisers Sarah Hill and Richard Ginger also sell and consequently had a really good idea of the type of event they wanted and managed to get together an eclectic mix of stalls.

We were contacted to trade at the first event in June and came back again in September. The mix of stalls spans clothing and accessories, to homewares and the odd food stall, you'll need the posh pork pies and fresh coffee to keep you going.

It's a really charming location and a darn sight better organised than some of the more regular events. We've posted some pictures of the swarming crowds. Or you can read more on the Woodbridge Vintage and Contemporary Fair blog. The only downside is that as a trader it's almost impossible to find the time to have a really good look around the fair yourself.

Pilgrim Shoes

Chris, who has let us camp out in her house and workshop is also a shoemaker. So like us she works with leather, however she shuns electric sewing machines for 19th century treadle power instead.

Here's a couple of pictures of her make do work shop (till we go) and some of her lasted shoes drying out in the morning sun. Find out more at www.pilgrimshoes.co.uk

Stabo Moves House - Again

After 10 days of high exertion we have finally managed to move our house and workshop to Bedfordshire.




Our old work shop prior to clearing out













Moving our leather cutting machine











Our new house, or at least we have rented some of it off our friend Chris.
















The new workshop












View from our new workshop









Thanks to those who helped us with the move. I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that we will probably have to do it all again in the new year.

Making pictures

This week we needed to update the website with some new Wax Cag pictures as we've just finished our first batch of 38" chest Cags. Taking photos of accessories is fairly straightforward, we just get out a white light cube, plonk them on the table, light them and more or less get shooting. Clothes are far more problematic, they really need to be modelled to be shown off to best effect. Not typically having a model or photographic studio on hand we always end up making do, normally using each other and a random space.

This time Ed was the model. We have a fairly low success rate for the photos and all of them need touching up. So I spent the afternoon doing that.
I was amazed by how much like Ed the image of his face in blue lines looked, I knew he wouldn 't appreciate being identifiable so had fun totally erasing his face.