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Due to various trips and vacations and wars and such, I haven’t had much of a chance to work on too many shoes. But, I do have this fun little pair to show off to you. The decoration is subdued, but very pretty, primarily scoring and small deep cuts in the material. The vamp is lined with gold taffeta, and the quarters are unlined. | |
I ended up visiting Los Alamos, New Mexico, for some work related activities, and while I was in the area, I taught a class on basic turnshoe construction and shoemaking. I packed a bag full of lasts, thread, bristles, wax, tools., etc. and made up a ton of stitching hanks in advance to prep for this. It was a great success, though we put in many more hours than I had expected we would need! A couple of things to note for next time:
1) Limit the class to four maximum – as it turned out, we only had four anyway, but this is really the most I could handle easily without going too crazy.
2) No tall boots! Ankle boots with one seam should be the tallest option. Otherwise, there is simply too much stitching to do.
3) Choose three styles of shoe, and stick to those. We spent a lot of time patterning, and I think that put us behind.
4) Stitching blocks and stirrups – everyone needs to have one. It makes life tons easier.
5) Thickness of leather – don’t try and compensate for difficulty in closing by selecting a heavier leather. It only makes your life more miserable in the end. You end up with a higher propensity for breaking awls, and it makes the shoes much more difficult to turn.
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One of the finished results of one of our students – not only did all of the shoes fit, but they all looked quite fantastic! Picture courtesy of Avivah. |
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I just posted a new tutorial on Grooving the Outsole In early modern and modern welted shoes, the sewing that keeps the outsole attached to the welt is sunk into a groove on the underside of the outsole. This tutorial will hopefully help to illustrate the process I use to determine with the groove ought to lie. | |
No, you are not losing your mind - yes, these are very similar to the other pair I made earlier. =) I had promised a friend of mine a pair of shoes for some wonderful calligraphy that she did a while back, and she very much like the earlier shoes for Cathyn, so here is the repeat!
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The only real difference here is the lack of a binding on the top edge, and that I used a square fingerloop braid instead of a flat braid. It comes out a bit thicker, more like a real shoelace. | |
