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Jean Modification Tag: Jean Patches WITH THE CURRENT DRIVE to be green and spend less money, thrift-store shopping is now eco-chic. But what if those Gap skinnies or Seven bootcuts don't fit, are out of date, or are just revolting? Don't die of barfness — reconstruct.Did Levi Strauss have skirts, appliques and raw hems in mind when he invented jeans? Nah, but redoing denim makes sense. Denim "has a distinct American history," says San Francisco designer Scatha G. Allison, author of "Jean Therapy" ($20, Quarry). "It's designed to be worn until it falls apart," meaning blues that've outlived their hipness are ripe for rehab.Choose jeans that fit you, either from your stash or a thrift store. Make sure the denim is in good shape, with no rips or holes. A sewing machine, scissors and heavy-duty needle and thread are musts, say Allison and fellow jean-revival queen Karen Kormondy of Capitol Hill store Ipso Crafto (733 Eighth St. SE; 202-546-4329). Kormondy also just wrote a DIY book, "Denim Mania" ($20, St. Martin's).20080509-jeanskirt-300v.jpgThen relax! Use a pattern, or don't: Many "Jean Therapy" projects require just adding ruffles or embellishments. Kormondy tells newbies to start by turning full-length jeans into capris, then go on to other easy stuff like morphing jeans into a skirt. Then decorate with sequins, paint or iron-on patches from the craft store.And loosen up: "The more original it looks, the better" says Kormondy. "Nobody's measuring your stitches."20080509-jeanshirt-300v.jpg? Gored Skirt: Adapted from a pattern in "Jean Therapy"Time: About four hoursA super-flattering shape goes anywhere. Cutting the pattern pieces turned out to be the most time-consuming part of this enterprise; we also used denim from three smaller pairs of jeans, rather than the XXL the book calls for.? Puff-Sleeve Shirt: Adapted from a pattern in "Denim Mania"Time: About three hoursThis shirt, a thrift-store find, takes on a new flirty dimension with denim sleeves and a pocket lifted from the back of an icky pair of jeans. A little elastic keeps arms together. With a sewing machine, stitching time's cut in half. We hand-stitched the whole thing to prove we could, but by no means are you required to be as stubborn.

Invisible Zipper Out of the blue and into the blackThey give you this, but you pay for thatAnd once you're gone, you can never come back . . . "From "My, My, Hey, Hey (Out of the Blue)" by Neil YoungMy knickers are in a knot.Since when did buying a concert T-shirt turn into the fashion equivalent of playing Russian roulette?It's a purchase that used to be so simple and risk-free.Squeeze your way to the front of a merchandise table at a show, prepare to swallow deeply at the prospect of a big ticket price and remember to take said piece of clothing home. One of my Yes T-shirts could still be in one university chum's trunk.But recent purchases at shows have upped the risk factor considerably.No longer, it seems, is an extra-large T-shirt an extra-large. Or bands are happy to have me shell out big bucks for clothing so cheap I could spit through it.My T-shirt-buying confidence started to fade when I caught a reformed Genesis at Auburn Hills, Mich., in September.Careful research was done prior to the date by this scribe. After all, it was the British group's first tour in 15 years and the fan base, mostly 40-plus, would have the cash to stock up on tour merchandise.I wasn't about to waste time at the show deciding if I'd opt for a shirt with the mugs of Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford from their "Invisible Touch" heyday or artwork from their great 1972 album, "Foxtrot."I settled on a black T-shirt that included nods to cover art from a number of their albums including "Duke," "Selling England by the Pound," and - I love them for this - "Calling All Stations." That's the 1997 disc featuring new vocalist Ray Wilson that didn't make many connections with fans.The shirt price at $40 was the stiffest yet paid in 20 years of concert-going, but I was prepared for the high cost because of the fine design. But could the manufacturer have picked a cheaper cotton material to make the shirt?There's already a small hole in the front thanks to my getting the shirt caught in a pant zipper.Look, it's not like Genesis is scraping by these days. The "Turn It On Again" tour was No. 8 in Pollstar's top 20 grossing tours of North America in 2007.When I couldn't make up-and-coming Canadian death folk Elliott Brood's October show in Sault Ste. Marie, I asked local CD Plus manager Jake Haentjens to buy me a tour shirt.The purchase looked promising enough - a sharp green top with a crow on the chest. That's a perfect image for a band that sometimes covers dark subject matter in its songs.It's an extra-large shirt, but it fits me like a large. There's not a lot of room to move around in it. When my stomach is the most prominent part of my torso, that's not a good thing.With its "Tremolo" shirt, Blue Rodeo earns kudos for the most comfortable tour wear I have ever worn. I kept wearing it until it was literally falling apart.But what happened with my most recent purchase when the great Canadian country-rock act played the Soo's Steelback Centre in February?I opted for a shirt that, similar to the Genesis one, featured artwork from just about all their albums including their spacey 1995 effort, "Nowhere to Here." Nice touch.This extra-large shirt earns scorn for two reasons. It's tight around the neck but boasts huge arms. Look, I'm no fashion maven. A quick look at the ink stains on just about every dress shirt I own is proof of that. But even I have some idea of when something shouldn't be worn in public. This shirt is a prime example.Former teaching colleague and concert lover supreme Steve Agnew suggests an easy way to solve my dilemma. Start buying bigger shirts than needed and then shrink them in the dryer."They're never the right size," he counsels from his Oakville, Ont., home."That's the secret - always go up a size or two. That's the rule."Meanwhile, I'd appreciate bands choosing fabric that can actually last. I still have three Stompin' Tom Connors shirts purchased at shows from 1990 to 2004. They're all 100 per cent cotton and made in Canada. Say what you will about the man's music, but he treats his fans right.Can clothing manufacturers agree on standardized sizes? A merchandise table at an arena isn't the easiest place to try on different sizes. It's buy or die.The simplest solution - saying no to concert T-shirts - isn't an attractive one. They're a concrete reminder of a special night out. My Rush shirt from their "Presto" tour marks the only time I was inside Maple Leaf Gardens. My "Desmond's Hip City" shirt is a great reminder of Canadian alt-country act Skydiggers playing a memorable mid-1990s date at Roberta Bondar Pavilion in Sault Ste. Marie.But these days, I'm just singing the blues.

Honeycomb Fabric VICTORIA -- People can now reduce their environmental footprint even after they've stopped walking the earth.A Victoria funeral parlour is promoting cardboard caskets covered in wood veneer and urns made of compressed cotton, rice and other biodegradable materials to provide the dearly departed and their loved ones a greener burial option.Fabric-covered cardboard caskets have been around for years, but have never looked this good or been so environmentally appealing, says Chris Benesch, manager of Sands Funeral Chapel, a division of Toronto-based Arbor Memorial Services."People want eye appeal and not to spend a whole lot, like a mortgage, so this gives them a good option if they are having a viewing," says Benesch."These days, the environmental issues are important, especially to the generation that is now burying their parents."As a second-generation funeral director, Benesch said "My first impression was 'Wow, that's cardboard?' "The caskets, manufactured in China and imported by Pan Pacific Paper Caskets in Vancouver, support up to 225 kilograms (almost 500 pounds) but only weigh 20 to 30 kilograms, depending on the model. Made from 100 per cent recycled cardboard and pressed in honeycomb style to provide strength, the coffins currently come in quite convincing imitations of oak, mahogany and pine.Cardboard caskets also require less time and fuel in the cremation process, which reduces emissions, said Benesch. B.C. is the North American leader in cremation, with more than 80 per cent of clients choosing it as an alternative to burial.Retail prices of the cardboard caskets are only about 15 per cent below the real-wood counterparts, said Benesch, who expects the prices to fall as volume increases. Traditional caskets at Sand's range from a $13,000, stainless-steel model and $5,800 for solid cherry to the traditional unlined pine box, which sells for $895.Funeral service firms are joining companies worldwide providing green options for consumers.Europeans are ahead of the curve, providing everything from pay-per-view funerals so mourners do not have to travel to services, to a process being offered in Sweden and Germany called Promessa Organic, where the deceased is submerged in liquid nitrogen and sound waves reduce the brittle remains to powder.Closer to home, Royal Oak Burial Park in Saanich -- the largest community-owned cemetery in B.C. at 55 hectares -- is setting aside one-third of a hectare for a natural burial site, the first of its kind in Canada and scheduled to open in the fall.Under the guidelines for burial, only bodies without embalming will be allowed and they can be wrapped in a simple shroud or in a biodegradable casket. Concrete liners, which cover caskets in traditional burying, will not be permitted and wildflowers, shrubs and plants will substitute traditional steel and stone grave markers.

Hat Material When US President George W. Bush's plane lands in Israel at the start of his visit to the Middle East, perhaps it should do one of those corkscrew-dive-descent-and-landings, because that will probably be the only thrill he will get during this visit to the Jewish state and several Arab countries. If Bush were honest he would feel that there is a carnival-like feel to his foreign policy in the Middle East - lots of ups and downs, plenty of drama, noise and thunder, fire and explosions, but when you go home there is no substance left behind, only a momentary feel-good legacy of entertainment, illusion and make-believe. Pity George Bush this week, for he comes to review the desolate landscape of his failed policies in the Middle East. But pray, also, that his successor will take time to study the causes of this cumulative failure, and avoid them in the years ahead.Bush is the delinquent foreign-policy maestro of an otherwise great country. He has failed to deal honestly and rationally with the realities of the region, preferring wishful thinking and simplistic black-and-white threats to the hard work and nuanced sensibilities that are needed to grapple with the problems, challenges and opportunities of the Arab-Asian region. His desperate, last minute, pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat attempt at Annapolis to achieve Palestinian-Israeli peace was clearly insincere - because he did not invest the required political capital to get it done, and did not have the required intellectual clarity and moral gumption to make it happen. He hoped to ride a runaway horse to the finish line, and ended up in a horror house of mirrors. His peace partners have proved illusory, his necessary impartiality nonexistent, and his sense of how Palestine-Israel fits into the wider picture in the Middle East totally absent.Worse for him, he visits at a time when events in Lebanon provide his sixth consecutive major foreign-policy failure in the region: Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon have not generated the anti-Islamist democracy surge in the region that he vowed to produce, his overall governance-reform policy in the Arab world lies in tatters and in locked drawers, and his "war on terror" has sparked the single biggest resurgence and decentralization of terror perhaps in modern world history.The lessons of his cumulative, enormous and continuing misdeeds are bountiful, and offer rich study material for his successor. The single most important one is that if you primarily use foreign armies to rearrange the political furniture of distant lands with their own histories and values, you will fail spectacularly, every time, with absolute certainty. American triumphalist apologists, neoconservative desperados, and allied intellectual airheads will argue Bush's rationales for years, with the same result: disdain and rejection from much of the world, and the hope that real American values will rear their fairere heads when this policy and morality masquerade is mercifully laid to rest and retirement.

Fiber Optic Caps This report analyzes the worldwide markets for Fiber Optic Products & Applications in Millions of US$. The major product segments analyzed are Optical Fiber, and Fiber Optic Components ( Fiber Optic Connectors, Fiber Optic Couplers, Fiber Optic Transmitters/Receivers, Fiber Optic Amplifiers, & Others). The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and Rest of World. Annual forecasts are provided for each region and product segment for the period of 2000 through 2015. The report profiles 382 companies including many key and niche players worldwide such as 3M, ADC Telecommunications, Inc., Advanced Cable Systems Corp., Agilent Technologies Inc., Alcatel-Lucent SA, Amphenol Corporation, ARRIS Group, Inc., Corning, Inc., Corning Cable Systems LLC, Diamond SA, Fujikura Ltd., Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd., Hirose Electric Co., Ltd., Hitachi Cable Ltd., HUBER+SUHNER, Infineon Technologies AG, Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Ltd., JDS Uniphase Corp., Methode Electronics, Inc., Molex, Inc., Nortel Networks, Siemens AG, Sterlite Optical Technologies Ltd., Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd., Telect, Inc., Tellabs, Inc., and Tyco International Ltd. Market data and analytics are derived from primary and secondary research. Company profiles are mostly extracted from URL research and reported select online sources.

Diamond Zipper INTERNATIONAL. Fashion house MCM will show its Autumn/Winter 08 accessories collection to travel retail buyers at TFWA Asia Pacific in Singapore next month (Stand number: L2).With growing travel retail distribution in the Asian region, the company has crafted a collection distinguished by silky, soft, and glossy looks, with an emphasis on tassels and adornments, featuring the redesigned MCM silver square pendant.Colours include violet, chocolate and camel, alongside bright reds, oranges and yellows.MCM's new collection features individual styling, trendy colourways and choice of bag sizes and shapes, including the popular Boston, drawstring, tote and shopper.Highlights include:Alda Silky Patent: Expected to be a major line for Autumn/Winter, the glossy look and soft feel is created for the special-edition Pochette, Boston medium and large bags using patent crinkle calf leather and featuring the MCM logo studs. Featuring a tassel fringe, the bags come in black and violet. The bags are also available in plain silky patent – along with shoppers, drawstrings, wallets and key rings – in black, green and brown. Typical travel retail price for a medium Boston bag is €539. Special Editions are €396 for the pochette and €825 and €913 for the medium and large Bostons.Alda Silky Shrunken: Using high quality, soft leather, this range has an ultra-light feel. In bright yellow and orange, as well as black and chocolate, choices include medium and large Boston, shopper, drawstring and pouch shapes, along with small leathergoods, including mobile phone straps and key chains. Typical travel retail price for a large shopper is €682Patent Edition: A trendy, luxurious line with a self colored epoxy lion-embossed zipper and metal adornments, in all patent or patent and fabric combination. Choose from a khaki, chocolate and black tote or small chocolate Boston in all patent, or a small Boston in orange, red and sky blue or medium Boston in red and black patent/fabric. Wallets and key rings are also available. Typical travel retail price for a medium tote is €825.Love Letter: A range in several combinations: all leather or suede and patent or croc-embossed calf leather. Shapes include shoulder, tote and satchel. Typical travel retail price is €759 for a shopper.Quilting: A diamond quilt in soft calf leather is designed to create a warm and chic look. A large MCM logo on the front stands out and is complemented by tassels and charms which create sophisticated styling. In black, camel and violet, there are Boston, tote and shopper shapes, as well as various small leathergoods. Typical travel retail price is for €649 for a large tote or shopper.Pop Croco: Targeted at younger customers, with a softer look than MCM’s croco bag shapes, Pop Croco uses Italian made glossy croco-embossed leather. A Boston, medium clutch and folding clutch comes in blue, black and brown. Typical travel retail price is €539 for a small clutch.Diamond Python: There are three versions of Boston and tote in black/white color combinations: one is embossed python calf and embossed croco calf; the second comes in diamond jacquard and embossed croc calf; and the third is made from real python and real croco skin. Typical travel retail price is €1,045/€1,210/€5,720 for the black/white tote in each version.Diamond Jacquard: One of MCM’s most striking and popular signature designs in light, practical Diamond Jacquard material with natural calf leather trim is now offered in brown/natural, gold/beige, and black/grey colourways. Trendy large-sized bags are offered for tote, shopper, Boston and drawstring shapes, along with cosmetic cases and purses. Typical travel retail price for €539 for the Boston.Star Fighter: This practical small and large Shopper, Pilot Bag and Weekender come in black, violet and dark camel. Typical travel retail price is €770 for a weekender.