New hoody on its way to Ottawa.  I need to set up some different colour backgrounds - the green kind of throws off the navy blue of the hoody.

This is, in my opinion, one of the nicest Helo Jacket designs that I've made.   This one is a Tall size, which makes the body about 1.75" longer than a regular size.  This one also has front hand pockets, which is a feature not recommended for rowing use.

This is the Victoria City Rowing Club baselayer shirt, made from the same fabric as the racing clothing.  

This is the combination of the Mithril vest with that baselayer shirt.   The vest is a combination of lightweight waterproof softshell and the Frogskin waterproof stretch material in the sidepanels.

Here are a couple of cool designs from the Fall season:

It's Sunday and a midst the stacks of orders I'm working through for the weekly Fall deadlines, I took the kids into Victoria for an hour to the Cherry Bomb Toy Show at Pearke's Arena.    I have a lot of respect (and envy) for artists who are making their own brands of cool creations.   One of my favorites is Terri Wild who is the one-person force behind My Friend Monster.   Her work is really outstanding and worth checking out.  For the quality of her product, her prices are very fair.   The monsters are super cute and weird and immensely creative.   I strongly recommend checking out her etsy.  She has even more epic creations if you can get to one of her on-site setups.

 http://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/myfriendmonster

If you were judging by the lack of blog posts, you might think there's nothing interesting going on at Row West.    The truth is, this summer has seen some very fun and interesting uniform designs and an intense workload.   Here are some (not all) of the designs that I worked on and subsequently printed, cut and sewed for teams in a few different sports...

Canoe Kayak Saskatchewan for the Canada Summer Games

Blacktips Quidditch (Uniform design by Lauren Mosley)

York Quidditch

Titans Quidditch

Aspire Triathlon 

Team Nova Scotia - Canada Summer Games

 Utah Crimson Fliers - Quidditch (uniform design by Jen Jewell)

In the tiny times between orders, I also created dye sublimation sandwich boards for Shawnigan House Coffee- highly recommended if you are ever in Shawnigan Lake.  I built a go kart that rides on train track rails for my kids (and general exercise from pulling the kids along in it) , I completed 3 lego sets - two copies of the Horizon Express Train (so they can link together to form a bullet train, and the Grand Prix Racer. I got jumping stilts, which may be a bad idea, but definitely a fun thing.  It's pretty scary running down the road in these things.

So, it's into school season again and I'm finishing up jerseys for Ecole Cobble Hill's athletics program, working on uniforms for several rowing clubs around Canada and several Quidditch Teams from both the USA and Canada.    The only thing I wish for is more time to sneak out to downtown Victoria to skateboard and see movies.

Here's hoping I can post more cool designs as I roll along.  My next door neighbour and designer Darian Slater has some ideas in the pipeline that I hope to help him bring into reality.  He's a Grade 12 student with some cool ideas for snowboarding gear that I think would also work in sports like Rowing.

Seems like Spring rowing finished with the CSSRA wind storms in Ontario and suddenly we're into Alberta floods and Ontario heat waves.   Is it just me or is it getting harder to hold a full regatta without a weather incident?

It might be time to set aside several million dollars and build that indoor rowing course we've all imagined.

Work at Row West has been extremely busy.  Some of you may have seen the athlete jackets worn by Shawnigan Lake School at CSSRA's.  That was a brand new design with a new ultralight waterproof fabric. I'm working on getting that on the Row West website (in the minutes between working on orders).    Also new were the coach jackets worn by SMUS and Brentwood College at the same regatta.   I feel like I've almost got the jacket categories solidified.  The types of fabrics available these days make designing quite fun.   

I wish I had some photos to post right now - I've done some fun pieces of clothing between my orders, but my workshop is too chaotic to actually do some photography.  

I hope all of you are looking forward to a good summer of rowing and let's keep hoping for calm waters and a little bit less rain.