Month: December 2024

The Limits of Automation

Despite my desire to have my art gloves “stolen,” it’s possible – actually it’s likely – they can’t be mass-produced. Conforming the stitching to the printed image isn’t the only technical challenge. Precisely matching up the 2 sides of each glove is even trickier, and maybe impossible to automate. Pattern-matching takes the most time in my own making, using a backlight to align the prints as accurately as I can and pinning them together.

I don’t know how that process would be automated, especially on a stretchy knit fabric which would distort further if stabilized in a frame.

It is possible to print on garments after stitching, and this is done on some mass-produced gloves:

Acupunctures Finger Gloves Reflexology Gloves For Adult Elastic Reflexology Tools For Household Hand Tired Relieve Reusab

Notice the design does not extend into the seams. That’s because there is always a gap on the seam of dye-sublimated finished garments, and even though this gap can be as small as 1mm each side, it would ruin the look of my own gloves, adding a white stripe all around the hand.

This is probably why there are no super-cool looking mass-produced art gloves. Although I could design something cooler than reflexology patterns for dye-sublimated finished ones, they wouldn’t be as beautiful as the ones I sew on my dining room table.

Maybe my gloves are more special than I reckoned. Maybe they are worth $25 a pair. Some say I should charge even more, but I designed them to help dermatillomania sufferers, not to become a luxury fashion brand. I really wish they could be cheaper and more accessible. You can still buy your own fabric and sew them yourself. Other than that, handmade-by-the-artist-for-subsistence-income is the best I can do.

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“Steal” my Gloves!

Copyright zealots insist every good idea will be “stolen” if not “protected”. If only that were true! In case it is, I’m putting this out there: PLEASE “STEAL” MY GLOVE DESIGNS AND MASS PRODUCE THEM MORE CHEAPLY AND EFFICIENTLY THAN I EVER COULD. I put the high-resolution artwork at archive.org. If you want me to modify it, just contact me (but only if you can actually mass produce them, don’t waste my time otherwise). I can make new designs too. Usually “knock-offs” are inferior imitations of the real thing, but I am offering you the real thing! For Free! Because I want the copies to be as good as the original.

Sewing hour after hour at my dining room table is fun and all, especially in this cold weather, but really I’d prefer my gloves to be mass produced. They would be much cheaper and easier to get into and on the hands that need them. I appreciate some people are willing to pay $25 a pair for the ones I sew myself but let’s face it, that’s unsustainable: I can’t keep sewing them for a subsistence income, the price is beyond what most people can afford, the novelty of being a one-woman glove factory is wearing off fast, and the tiny market of friends and followers demanding them will be fully saturated soon.

I could invest in having them produced overseas, but I don’t have $25,000+ lying around. Nor do I want the responsibility of storing and distributing the product. I would much prefer someone already in the business to produce these designs. Admittedly they might require some custom production architecture; most mass-produced gloves don’t conform precisely to a print as these must. I’m sure the technology to sew and cut using automated visual feedback exists, but not in my backyard.

20 Talk To Me, Baby

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