The Fluevog Sandal Clog Has Risen

Oh how I love these sandals!
On Saturday, they were sprung from Repair Jail. On the advice of Petrea at Fluevog Abbot Kinney, I took them to Miracle Shoe Repair in Playa Del Rey. I wanted a gentle touch -- these treasures are 25 years old! They needed new soles, front and back, and the back of the heels required a little rebuilding.

You can see two strata of heel repair: the dark upper layer was added in the 90s by Zinke's in Pasadena

To try and inspire myself to do some work on Repair Mountain, I pulled all the garments that coordinated with the sandals:

I found a lot of items! Did I do anything? No, not yet.

Remember this photo? (from this post)

I've been using the bottom skirt portion to cover the broken sewing machine.

Today's outfit -- the one I went out into the world in, not the staged one I posted on IG:

I had to make a run to Egg Slut for some VERY IMPORTANT taste test items and to Staples for printer ink.
Doesn't my dotty shopping bag coordinate nicely? Severo bought me three of them!
The little bit of walking I did gave me incipient blisters, so if I wear these tomorrow (highly likely), I'll need to wear socks.

I'm now supposed to be looking for missing art prints but instead I'm going to join Mr Lou on the couch.
It's how I Monday!

Linking up with:
Patti's Visible Monday
Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike
Cherie's Shoe and Tell
Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week

Summer Fun

I'm joining up with some blogging friends, sharing my list of things I'd like to accomplish this summer.
Following are incriminating photos of what could be called my clutter crime scene:

Repair Mountain (aka Sewing Mountain)
There are actually several of these in various rooms.

Resale Rendezvous with The Shrine barely visible

The Clutter Magnet Coffee Table

See? Clear evidence that a blogger's home is not always beautifully staged!
(Well, is mine ever? Do I care?)

Weekly Goals:
Sew and/or repair at least one garment.
List at least one garment on Poshmark
and one on Trendlistr [if I can ever get back into the site, that is].
Upload new art to Redbubble.

Summer Goals:
Get taxes done.
DeClutter the living room (again).
Get sewing machine repaired.

Linking up this week with
Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week

plus:

Do you have any sort of "To Do" list for Summer?
Link and tell!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Shoe Is Born #otisshoeworkshop

I MADE MY OWN SHOES!!!!!!! (In case you hadn't heard).

The right shoe is still on the last. The left one is more or less finished. 

I took an amazing week-long shoemaking workshop with Chris Francis at Otis, through the auspices of the Continuing Ed department. [Thank you CE, for underwriting my participation].
Seven of us worked 9-5, Mon-Fri, and 8-11 Sat and all made at least one shoe.
I'll post more about some of the amazing women that participated in subsequent posts --
this one is all about the process!

I'll show you some highlights -- get comfortable, kick your feet up, shoemaking has a lot of steps (harhar).
[I'll keep the images small, for easier scrolling. You can click on an image to see it bigger].

Day One: measuring

the last is first

foot tracing and measuring

comparing the tracing to the last, marking areas to extend

Day 2: Midsole

creating midsoles from scratch
leather is sandwiched between layers of a paper product called redboard

phase 1 of midsole nailed to last

adding steel shanks

adding more redboard to bottom of midsole

 Day Three: uppers - designing, patterns, painting

last covered with masking tape, design worked out

masking tape carefully peeled off last

truing up paper pattern

cutting the uppers from raw vegetan cowhide

folding the topline

stitched dart shapes back of heel

paint it RED!

adding leopard pattern

cutting pigskin liner

Day Four: sewing upper, lasting

attaching upper to liner at topline

covering the edges of midsole with vintage Thai silk

ready to begin lasting

first nails

oops, heel dart not in center. oh well.

prep for gluing in toe box

the pair is lasted

Day Five: heels, soles

prep for gluing upper to midsole and adding cork

next the nails will be replaced with tacks, which stay in the shoe

bottom is smoothed with sander and dremmel

we used plastic heels

plastic covered with pigskin, then dyed black

heel glued, it stands!

[Chris didn't want us sharing his method of making the soles.]

here, I'm waiting for glue to dry to stick the sole to the heel

I wrote a secret message inside the right sole

Day Six: delasting, insole, done

lining trimmed from topline
ready to delast!

tada!

after sinking screws into the heel and nailing in tap, the insole pattern is refined
I didn't catch what kind of leather we cut the insole from
I painted mine purple

it's a shoe!

Did you have any idea that all this went into the making of a shoe?

Linking up with
Patti's Visible Monday
Shelbee's On the Edge of the Week
Catherine's #SaturdayShareLinkup
Rena's Fine-Whatever
Cherie's Shoe and Tell

Super Easy Skirt DIY

Where was I when they issued the "How To" on making a tube skirt out of a tee?
Wool-gathering, no doubt.

Find the too-tight tee/tank/cami:

Cut straight across just under the sleeves/armholes:

Wear!

So easy! Why didn't I think of this sooner!

By the way, I got a new camera.
It has WiFi. I no longer have to email my outfit pix to myself. I can use the WiFi!
Oh the possibilities...

Here's a side-by-side comparison of unedited photos (aside from cropping)
from the old Panasonic Lumix (left) and the new Nikon Coolpix L840 (right):

No more adjusting the Levels in Photoshop every single time!
[Does happy dance].

Linking up with Patti's Visible Monday (oops, she's on vacation!)
Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike
Shelbee's Spread the Kindness