Noah has posted an update at Kickstarter with upgraded rewards for contributors!

Good friend and fellow tribesman Noah Beasley is joining the Open Source commerce fray, offering up some of his most popular designs.

[My] Items are created in a computer with modeling software, and then converted from bits to atoms using 3D printing technologies. By using this method, an item can be replicated a thousand times, or only once. There are no molds, there is no casting, there are only robots building each item from the physical pixels of the material required.

This means these things made of matter are not much different than any other piece of intellectual property such as music, movies, or software.

Click through to read more and support Noah's Kickstarter Project - I'm in! - Jake

I'm backing these folks and you should too!

"Because we support maker culture, we will release our production patterns on our site for download so that people can sew their own versions of our garments. In addition, we will be documenting our progress so that others can learn from our mistakes and improve on the model.

We want to prove that the current paradigm of competition in business is not the only way to make a living. We believe that small businesses can thrive through collaboration and resource sharing . . ."

Click though and pledge to support these fine folks, I truly believe they are onto something and that it is something worth supporting! - Jake

It's finally finished, and that means, I finally get to show it to you. The NorthSkirt is a soft circuit project that incorporates my redesigned flexible soft-circuit boards (now, StarBoards), a hacked NorthPaw kit, and a strong desire to have a soft-circuit project actually DO something.

What does it do? It points north, silly.

This post is part 1 of 2- the next one I'll have a really exciting announcement about StarBoards. Way more info after the cut...

Our own Libby Bulloff has a wonderful article in the current issue of SteamPunk Magazine. Libby makes the case for what needs to happen for Steampunk to become a sustainable style rather than mere and fleeting fashion.

Within, she examines current trends in Steampunk dress and warns that:

We’re no better than our wealthy, trendy, hipster counterparts when we cease the continuous metamorphosis of our look, when we won’t fearlessly model our style at our desk jobs . . . 

I think she hits the nail on the head.

SteamPunk Magazine is available in print through Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness in the Americas and Vagrants Among Ruins for the rest of the world, and can also be downloaded for free from their downloads page.  Available for the first time is an iPhone/eReader version for 1£. This is the version I bought and I love having it on my phone. 

Also featured in this issue are pieces by Jaymee Goh of Silver Goggles and Ay-leen The Peacemaker of Beyond Victoriana who did me the great honor of inviting me to sit on their Social Issues in Steampunk Roundtable panel at the upcoming Steampunk World's Fair!

The always awesome Doctor Popular writes:

Hey Jake,

I believe you know about my recent sponsorship deal with Colchester Rubber Co. If not, you can read about it here http://www.docpop.org/2010/03/29/doc-pops-got-sole.html

They are extending their $18.92 sale for one more day and getting rid of the "email us to get a promo code" thing. So until 11:59 pm April 1st you can still buy a pair of shoes for the "Doc Pop discount". I noticed a couple folks commenting that these shoes could be easily modded to fit a steampunk aesthetic, so I thought I'd drop you a line in case you wanted to mention the deal on y'r bloghole. I'll also be donating my proceeds for the shoes sold to a local non-profit.

Hope y'r swell,

-Doctor Popular   [Thanks Doc! Hope to see you again soon at Maker Faire! -Jake]

Someone once told me that the first things people look at when they meet you are your shoes and your hands. It's very easy to tell if someone uses their hands to make things as they tend to have callouses, weathered skin, and may have curious stains or broken nails. Shoe choice reads just as clearly--do your shoes match your outfit? Are they stylish and functional? Are they impractical, well-designed, worn out, or coated in dust from the workshop?

I personally love how shoes complete an outfit, and I have a special lust for vintage-influenced footwear, both practical and whimsical. It can be very difficult to acquire antique footwear that fits a modern foot--our predecessors often had shorter, narrower feet--or that hasn't been worn to death. I am fortunate enough to own a pair of 1930s oxfords that fit my slender feet, a set of antique leather roller skates, and some killer scarlet pointy-toed punk boots from back in the day. However, if you're not so lucky as to have a real vintage shoe collection, lots of modern shoes still nod at the past in their design (and fit bigger feet). There is nothing quite like the curve of a Louis heel, mmhmm.

Here's a selection of shoes (ranging from totally casual to super decadent) for the ladies I've found in scouring the interwebs that all have vintage flair. I'll be doing a similar post for you gentleman types, never you fear. :) And hey, not all of these are brown and clunky! Yay! Let's get some SHOES!

One of the ways I upcycle old, worn garments is to dye them. Stained, stretched-out beaters, ratty petticoats, and once-white tuxedo shirts with dingy collars enshroud themselves in new life when dropped into a steaming bucket of color. As my best friend is a pedigreed textiles artist, I've spent many a night in a professional dye lab, using bromine and other harsh chemicals to deposit tint onto wool, but I feel that the most satisfying way to dye fabric is to use what is essentially garbage. I speak of items you're probably going to toss or compost anyway, like yellow onion skins, beet tops, yesterday's Earl Grey bag, or that rusting tin of turmeric you bought eons ago for Indian cooking (but instead forgot in the back of the cabinet). Natural dye has been used to color fabric for 4,500 years, and was even popular amongst German soldiers in World War II due to broken trade routes.¹

As seen this morning via the oddity sandwich that is Google Buzz/riotclitshave:

Model: Ulorin Vex
Photographer: Allan Amato

This is definitely Doin' It Right [TM]. Heck yes.

Etsy.com is indubitably Mecca for handmade steampunk clothing. Here are a few awesome pieces I dug up this morning. If you have any favorite Etsy sellers or items, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Read on for details!

Thank you.

~~~~~

Back with another round of street fashion and casual, wearable steampunk! This week's featured soul is writer and critic Jessica Lawson. I stayed at her current residence in San Francisco last week as I toured with The Ghosts Project, and I was pleasantly surprised when she emerged in the following get-up. Jessica is employed as a teacher at the University of Iowa, and her clothing choices prove that one can be professional and fashion forward simultaneously.

We took these images outside Macky Hall on the California College of the Arts campus, Oakland, CA. Thank you to Jessica for posing for me and for letting me borrow her camera. I thought I'd be clever and leave my SLR at home for a change, but it seems I can't escape playing photog, ever. :) Read on for outfit details!