Once a needle breaks, do you curse the break in your flow (or your skin), toss it aside, and agitatedly reach for a new one? 

In Japan, the hari kuyo service holds that needles should be thanked for their hard work and given a respectful memorial. Every February 8 (or December 8, in some regions), hundreds of broken needles are brought by droves of seamstresses and kimono makers to the temple for a final send-off. The needles are driven in a block of soft tofu or a konnyaku jelly cake, an act which envelops them in tenderness after the strenuous duty of punching through heavy textiles has ended. While monks chant and incense swirls towards the sky, prayers are said to both show gratitude to the tools for their service and to ask the gods for improved sewing skills. In some areas, once the ritual is completed, the tofu is floated down a river as a final good-bye.

As described by Reuters, hari kuyo is a 400 year-old tradition that blends the animist beliefs of Shinto with the ritual of Buddhism. In addition to recognizing the duty of the needle, the ceremony reflects a strong ethic of frugality and keeping account of even the littlest things in life. Sadly, the ritual has has been sparsely attended in recent years, as fewer women commission and wear custom kimonos. A recent non-Japanese observer noted that the audience of curious onlookers in Tokyo outnumbered the seamstresses and monks who were performing the ritual. 

I'd never heard of hari kuyo before, but was instantly appealing to me both as a seamstress and as a vegan (tofu 4 lyfe!). I had heretofore hoped to return to Japan at some point in the future to catch kanamara matsuri in April, but forget that, I'm now set on going in February. Brrr.

Here are the "official" photos of Pepper's Vida Vegan Con 2013 outfit! 

The smock is made of a quilting-weight cotton calico, with two-tone double piping, recycled eco felt appliques, and cotton sashiko stitching. One side reads "Vida Vegan Con," and the other is the name of this site, Sews Before Bros. The pattern is my own devising, and I am going to give it to you for free.

That's right! This pattern has worked out so well for Pepper and I that I have no logical next step except to share it with the world. Gandhi told us to be the change we want to see in the world, and quite frankly, I want to see more impeccably-dressed dogs out there. 

What's that, you want the pattern now? Well, this is quite embarrassing, but... I'm still honing my Adobe Illustrator skills. Luckily for me, I have a brilliant tutor, and fully expect to meet my self-imposed deadline of May 24, 2013. Which is when Vida Vegan Con starts! How serendipitous. 

To get yourself hyped up in the meantime, here are two Vida Vegan Con badges (one official, one Pepperific) for you to put on your site! If you only use one badge, you should use the official one- it's clearer and has more information, plus it's, well, official. However, if your dog has his or her own blog, or maybe you want to put something VVC-related on one of your site's pages, Pepper would be honored to assist! Please link either badge back to the Vida Vegan Con website at www.VidaVeganCon.com.

Check back on both the blog and in the Apparel section of my Patterns page to get the free basic dog smock pattern, coming this May! Click on any of the photos below for a larger shot and your daily recommended dose of dog. 

Courtesy of Mr. X-stitch, enjoy this adorable and innovative "Piñata-Skin Rug" by flickr user Fortuneless_Cookie, made of felt and cotton. 

Normally, an animal-skin rug would conjure visions of some nobility, freshly returned from safari, puffing on a pipe in his library and surrounded by the dead-eyed stares of dozens of endangered, exotic animals. This imaginative project turns that tired old stereotype on its head through colorful, cruelty-free, easily-accessible materials. It's the animal-skin rug for the layman, if you will. 

So far this looks to be a one-off project by the artist, done solely to please a whim. Although I must admit some regret that I cannot get my own piñata-skin rug through Etsy, I can definitely approve of following one's own flight of fancy, salability be damned. 

Apropos, the last piñata I had the pleasure of enjoying was at a friend's baby shower a little over a year ago. It was a "grown-up" piñata, meaning that in addition to delicious candies, it was laden with lotto tickets, novelty lighters, and airline-sized booze bottles! That's a free tip from me for any of you who are having parties. 

I remember the moment when, last year, it became evident to me that despite the promising breadth of coverage received by Russia's feminist artists' collective Pussy Riot, the point of their activism was flying over a lot of heads: a man in his 60s, who I know through professional circles, approached me to ask where I thought he could buy a Pussy Riot costume for Halloween. My initial thought was that he was probably thrilled for a semi-legitimate opportunity to say the word "pussy" to my face (several times). My second was to despair that someone had so little imagination as to hope someone else would pre-package a dress and balaclava for easy consumption.

The third, as this piece by Tom Megginson touches upon, was to ponder the sad state of affairs that exists when a brave act of religious and/or political defiance becomes diluted through media exposure to be little more than a meme. 

Case in point is the German lingerie company Blush, which recently commemorated the first anniversary of Pussy Riot's now-infamous protest concert at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior by marching a scantily-clad model through Moscow in -15 degree (Celcius) temperatures. Here's a video:

Although the lingerie company promotes the freepussyriot.org fundraising site, the disingenuous paradox of a model prancing in expensive underwear in support of political prisoners enduring horrific conditions can't help but evoke comparisons to "pinkwashing"-- the process whereby a corporation purports to fund the fight against breast cancer while simultaneously manufacturing and selling products using known carcinogens. As Blush recognizes the injustice of members of Pussy Riot being in jail with one hand, it uses the other to push the same patriarchal, consumerist paradigm of which Pussy Riot's music is critical in the first place. The video even uses the Headless Female Body trope (with the exception of the last frame) to drive home the point that for women, fashion is about drawing attention to their various (and apparently disarticulated) body parts and how best to manipulate that attention into what we need/want in life. As Megginson states, 

Blush is not the first company to conflate inspiration and franchise. Gerlan Jeans closed its Spring 2013 fashion show with a runway tribute to Pussy Riot, Hot Topic has a Free Pussy Riot T-shirt you can buy (with vague allusions to Amnesty International), and here's a helpful news article on how to buy a colored balaclava-- but of course, ladies can always opt for "classic, slimming" black.

Surprisingly, the New York Times Magazine has the best coverage of Pussy Riot's fashion style-- because they bothered to interview Bullet, an actual Russian woman and member of the Pussy Riot collective. Bullet explains how the colorful dresses and balaclavas create a uniform of solidarity while simultaneously bringing an idiosyncratic splash of celebratory hue to somber, and, often, dangerous protests. She continues:

Now that's what I call Doin' It Your Fuckin' Self. It's a shame that the aggressively independent ethos of confidence, fearlessness, and initiative championed by the members of Pussy Riot ended up becoming nothing more but another T-shirt slogan in the west.

I'm honored and excited to once again be attending Vida Vegan Con in Portland, Oregon, this coming May. But I'm not just going to be eating amazing food and hanging out with awesome people. I'm also honored to be speaking in two sessions: Veganism & Social Justice and Ethics Beyond the Plate. 

Adding to my excitement is the fact that Pepper, who has joined my family since the last Vida Vegan Con in 2011, will be coming with me to Portland. Naturally I felt the best way to commemorate this was to make her a special outfit. 

I'm still working on fixing up some photos for a widget to put on my site, but here is an outtake of Pepper workin' it for the camera! She sure does love to act all cuddly and cute. 

I do have one more plan for how to commemorate our fun trip together- I'll be providing the pattern for this basic dog smock here on Sews Before Bros, for free, by the start of this year's Vida Vegan Con! I call it a celebration of overshooting my goals-- initially, VVC was my deadline for getting Sews Before Bros up and running, and, well, that obviously turned out far better than expected! 

So, stay tuned to Sews Before Bros for more pics of Pepper in her cute little Vida Vegan Con outfit, a pattern for you to make your special guy/gal a cute little outfit of their very own, and some updates from VVC in Portland! And of course, if you're planning on attending VVC yourself, be sure to say hi to Pepper and I!

I've been wondering for a while where I can get a 'dotting' tool for more intricate designs on my nails. And then the Beauty Department comes along with its tutorials and goes "hey, dum dum. Why don't you just stick a straight pin into an eraser?" And I'm all *facepalm* "OF COURSE."

There's lots of other cool ideas, too. Like using those punched-hole reinforcers from the office supply closet to give you a perfect half-moon mani.

All these fantastic inspirations are available through their tutorials page,which also includes other fun bath/beauty projects, like body scrubs and sunburn soothers! Go get fancy!