Uni Watch DIY Project: Give That Jersey Some Laces!

[Editor’s Note: Our anonymous DIYer is back with yet another sensational hockey-themed project. Enjoy. ”” PL]

By Anonymous

I thought it would be funny to create a fictional aftermarket product that could provide any hockey jersey with a lace-up collar. So I made these little lace-up conversion kits (for all photos, click to enlarge):

The package design was influenced by shopping in sewing-supply stores. One of unexpected results of getting into sewing is the happy discovery that sewing stores are still very old-world, and you can still buy lots of items (buttons, needles, etc.) that come on cards or other simple packaging. And many of them are less than a dollar!

Here’s how I applied one of the kits to a jersey:

1. I started with an uncrested old Calgary/Atlanta Flames stock jersey. It’s an interesting transition piece, as the body is mesh but the stripes are one piece of Durene with the stripes woven in. Has the old-style loop fight strap as well! I began by positioning the lace-up collar in the correct position and hand-sewing it onto the jersey with matching thread:

2. As you can see in that last photo, the grommets only go through the top (red) piece of felt. This makes it easy to thread the laces through the top piece, while the yellow base is solidly sewn to the jersey:

3. Here’s the finished product:

Truthfully, this jersey suffered from poor execution. I used a really crappy, cheap-looking craft felt, plus the design could have been better. But I like the idea of being able to vintage-ize any jersey — it’s not so much a product as a philosophy. Nowadays, though, I’m making complete jerseys, most of them with lace-up collars, so this project seems less of a priority.

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Paul here. Hard to describe how much I love this one. Thanks so much for continuing to share your projects with us.

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If you can’t see the slideshow above, click here

An excellent way to spend a rainy afternoon: Thanks to Facebook, I recently reconnected with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in nearly 20 years. She now lives in Boston and I’m in NYC, so this past Saturday we decided to meet in the middle: New Haven, Connecticut. We stopped in at various attractions around town (including, of course, Frank Pepe’s Pizza), but the high point was our visit to the endearingly weird Knights of Columbus Museum, where I learned, among other things, that the KofC was founded in large part to provide life insurance to Catholic families, and that life insurance is still a big part of their mission today. Maybe everyone else knew that, but I didn’t. Anyway, the museum included a big display of medals and ribbons, so I took the not-so-great photos you see above. Fascinating place — the only downer is that I forgot to wear this.

Also: I’m familiar with the long-running magazine Cigar Aficionado, but the newsstand at the New Haven train station featured a title I hadn’t seen before — Cigar Snob (yes, you can make all your “What’s a magazine?” jokes here; click to enlarge):

I kinda like the forthrightness of the title. Maybe Uni Watch should be renamed “Uni Snob,” eh?

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Baseball News: Here’s a weird one: The 1943 Pirates played basketball in their baseball uniforms. The photo caption explains that this was because their regular spring training activities had been rained out (great find by Jerry Wolper). ”¦ Check this out: Larry Bird playing baseball for Indiana State in 1978. Further info here (from Patrick O’Neill). ”¦ Padres broadcaster Randy Jones worked Saturday’s spring training game in full uniform. ”¦ Flag-desecration uniforms yesterday for Vanderbilt. ”¦ With St. Paddy’s Day looming, the Mets Police blog has ranked the Mets’ various green caps and green jerseys. ”¦ Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of what Todd Radom humbly nominates to be the single greatest article ever written about baseball unis. ”¦ Nick Swisher of the Indians has “O-H-I-O” stitched into his first baseman’s mitt (from Tom Denne). ”¦ The Rays went high-cuffed with light-blue socks yesterday as a tribute to relief pitcher Grant Balour’s father, who died last week and had previously played with the Sydney Blue Sox in Australia (from Nick Hanson). ”¦ Tom Seaver did some ads for Sears menswear in the early 1970s, modeling clothing styles that, uh, have not aged particularly well. Check it out here and here (from Ben Fortney). ”¦ A Padres blogger came up with a novel idea: It would be great for the team to go back to wearing brown jerseys. How come nobody ever thought of writing about that before? ”¦ Hmmm, Reds or Reeds? (From Bob Gassel.) ”¦ Nice cream retro unis yesterday — or maybe true throwbacks, not sure — for TCU (screen shot by Brian Davis). ”¦ Follow-up note on Will Ferrell’s recently 10-uniform spring training stunt buried within this article: “Wondering why actor Will Ferrell didn’t wear white cleats when playing shortstop for the A’s on Thursday? His cleats are the one item of apparel from his day of playing every position throughout the Cactus League that will go to the Hall of Fame, so he couldn’t change them.” In case you missed it, Phil had great coverage of Ferrell’s antics on Saturday (from Michael Cross). ”¦ Orix Buffaloes OF Yoshio Itoi is wearing a captains’ “C” with a little crown on his left sleeve (from Yusuke Toyoda).

NFL News: Gridiron Uniform Database co-honcho William Schaefer has noticed something interesting: In the early 1990s, the lightning bolts on the Chargers’ pants had six points on each side (not counting the points at the very top and bottom). In 1996 they switched to eight points — except for Junior Seau, who consistently had nine. The following year, 1997, Seau wore eight like everyone else. Weird.

College and High School Football News: Reader Michael Booth found an old Hollywood High School team photo that shows the players wearing a combination of letters and numbers, instead of standard uni numbers. Perhaps this was inspired by the alpha-numeric systems used in the early 1950s by Kentucky and LSU. ”¦ Ohio State fans have started a petition to save the crop-top jersey. Good luck with that. ”¦ I think we’ve seen this before, but once more won’t hurt: Back in 1929, University of Chicago player Benny Wattenberg had glasses attached to his helmet to help with his nearsightedness (from Graham Clayton). ”¦ Clark Ruhland is conducting a Virginia Tech helmet bracket.

Hockey News: Small note at the end of this article indicates that the Coyotes will wear their peyote coyote throwbacks again in the near future. ”¦ Whoa, look at the jaw protector that Rick Tocchet used to wear. ”¦ The Blue Jackets warmed up in St. Paddy’s Day jerseys last night. ”¦ As per their usual custom, the Devils will be wearing their red and green uniforms for St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow. … The Flames will be wearing their red throwbacks on Thursday. … Interesting note in this Hurricanes/Blue Jackets game recap: “Carolina defenseman John-Michael Liles got his stick stuck in the visor of Columbus defenseman Jack Johnson in the first period while trying to check him. Johnson had to take his helmet off to remove the stick during a stoppage. There was no penalty.”

NBA News: The Clippers and Rockets both wore their colored alts yesterday creating a red vs. sky-blue matchup. ”¦ A bar in Glasgow, Scotland, is promoting its St. Paddy’s Day drink specials with the Celtics’ logo. “Not trying too hard to be original, are they?” says Scott Sargent.

College Hoops News: Check it out: March Madness emoji. ”¦ Interesting color-gradation shorts for the Robert Morris women’s team (from David Greenwald).

Soccer News: The ball design for the EPL’s 2015-16 season has leaked. ”¦ New third kit for Portugal. ”¦ Here are Adidas’s new teamwear kit templates. ”¦ These last three are from Yusuke Toyoda: Columbus Crew forward Kei Kamara celebrated a goal yesterday by creating a facsimile pantomime of the team’s old logo. ”¦ Crystal Palace players wore daffodil-adorned T-shirts for pregame warmups on Saturday in support of Marie Curie Cancer Care. Manager Alan Pardew got in the spirit by wearing a daffodil lapel pin. ”¦ Here’s an explanation of why Bayern Munich’s NOBs are positioned below the number.

Grab Bag: The Rutgers marching band is raising funds for new uniforms (from Chris Flinn). ”¦ An LAPD office ran the L.A. Marathon in full uniform to raise awareness and funds for families of fallen cops. … A heavy metal band is claiming that Kanye West stole their logo.