As a follow up to last year's Halloween Costume I designed a Captain America Running outfit with a short sleeve short and shorts. It's great for running the Peachtree which is a 10k held on the 4 th of July and it held up great during the Monster Dash Half Marathon. The shorts even have silver reflective piping.


This year for Oktoberfest I made Andrea a Dirndl and made Lederhosen for myself. There aren't any good lederhosen patterns out there so I made one and filmed the whole thing. I will post the how to soon



Great News today!   My graduate research project Design Obstacles just received a Notable in the 2012 Core77 Design Awards in the Student Consumer Product Category!!!  You can check out my project page here and see the other honorees here.
Summarized video after the jump.

About the Core77 Design Awards
Recognizing excellence in all areas of design enterprise, the Core77 Design Awards celebrate the richness of the design profession and its practitioners. In 2012 there are 17 categories of entry, providing designers, researchers and writers a unique opportunity to communicate the intent, rigor and passion behind their efforts.  From client work to self-initiated projects, entrepreneurial to pro-bono engagements, the Core77 Design Awards embrace a wide diversity of enterprise: commercial, cultural, social, environmental and discursive.

About Core77.com
Since 1995, Core77.com has been an indispensable design magazine and resource serving the greater online community.  Founded by designers living and working in New York City, today the Core77.com network includes daily design news, thought leadership, professional development, industry advocacy and community outreach.

The Jetpack Project is making its way to Twitter as I look forward to the new web show where I will teach you how to create some of the awesome things you see on the site and more!

Follow me on twitter to stay up to date:

 @JonathanSpoerke


So while I did my best to keep the Cinderella Christmas project a secret, she knew I was sewing something.  She is running the Disney princess half-marathon at the end of February and thought I might be making a Cinderella running dress for her.....I wasn't.....BUT I really liked the idea so CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

The running dress is a variant off the patterns I made for the main dress.   Obviously, it is much shorter and doesn't have the puffy sleeves....things that would kinda get in the way after a half mile let alone 13!  The dress is made from dry fit shirts from old navy so it breaths and moves well. To make it "magical" I piped the edges of the bodice and the bottom of the skirt with reflective piping so it sparkles and is safe! Also, because you're not doing it right unless you are overdoing it, I made a petticoat to go under the dress with built in running briefs.

Look for its debut at the Disney Princess half in Feb.  Better pics to come!! Back view after the jump.


My girlfriend is a huge Cinderella fan so this year for Christmas I decided to make her a Cinderella dress.  After doing a bit of research I decided that I really don't like the cartoon Cinderella's dress.  It works fine for a drawing but the little hip pouches don't really translate well to anything you could wear around.  After a bit more searching I found the Annie Leibovitz Cinderella photo with Scarlett.  I really liked the dress and thought that with a lot less volume it could actually pass pretty well as a fancy dress.  So like all my sewing endeavors I started with no patterns and, in this case, just one image to work from.

The picture is from Andrea's first fitting.  Still haven't hemmed it yet.  Once we have a nice warm weekend in Georgia when we aren't super busy I will get some nice pics.



While watching the Dragon-Con parade last September my girlfriend saw the USO girls from the movie and really wanted to be one for Halloween.  I'm a big Captain America (and America in general) fan so I was game.  Even though I've only seen it briefly in the trailer I wanted to make the Captain America Avenger's costume rather than the WWII one from the movie.  So with just a few screen shots to guide me I built the patterns and the suit from just a handful of screen caps.  I picked an athletic shirt fabric to give me the texturing and fit I wanted without it getting too warm.  Everything in the photos was built by me except for her shoes and gloves.  Also, props to the USO girls facebook group for the USO girl patterns.

More pics after the jump. Better /detailed pics and possible instructions to come!  


This was a small project that I did for my second cousin's birthday.  He really likes Captain America and I didn't think throwing a plastic shield around the house would go over too well with his parents.  This plush shield can be used as both an pillow and soft, throw-able, indoor plush!  The shield is made from polar fleece reinforced with interfacing.  

Hit the jump for more pics.