I MADE MY OWN SHOES!!!!!!! (In case you hadn't heard).
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| 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
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| the last is first |
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| foot tracing and measuring |
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| comparing the tracing to the last, marking areas to extend |
Day 2: Midsole
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creating midsoles from scratch
leather is sandwiched between layers of a paper product called redboard |
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| phase 1 of midsole nailed to last |
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| adding steel shanks |
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| adding more redboard to bottom of midsole |
Day Three: uppers - designing, patterns, painting
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| last covered with masking tape, design worked out |
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| masking tape carefully peeled off last |
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| truing up paper pattern |
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| cutting the uppers from raw vegetan cowhide |
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| folding the topline |
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| stitched dart shapes back of heel |
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| paint it RED! |
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| adding leopard pattern |
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| cutting pigskin liner |
Day Four: sewing upper, lasting
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| attaching upper to liner at topline |
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| covering the edges of midsole with vintage Thai silk |
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| ready to begin lasting |
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| first nails |
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| oops, heel dart not in center. oh well. |
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| prep for gluing in toe box |
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| the pair is lasted |
Day Five: heels, soles
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| prep for gluing upper to midsole and adding cork |
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| next the nails will be replaced with tacks, which stay in the shoe |
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| bottom is smoothed with sander and dremmel |
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| we used plastic heels |
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| plastic covered with pigskin, then dyed black |
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| heel glued, it stands! |
[Chris didn't want us sharing his method of making the soles.]
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| here, I'm waiting for glue to dry to stick the sole to the heel |
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| I wrote a secret message inside the right sole |
Day Six: delasting, insole, done
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lining trimmed from topline
ready to delast! |
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| tada! |
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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 |
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| 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
