I made this NOMOC a few days ago, so I haven’t waited very long to tell you about it! I have been working on the design for a “First Footsteps” toddler’s shoemaking kit with the hope that the technique might work for adult shoes as well – so I finally had the spaciousness in my life to try to make one – and I’m delighted with the results.
You might wonder “what is a NOMOC?” As soon as I complete the patterns I’ll be putting out a new book, How to Make Nomocs, Lowmocs and Fomocs. I realize no one is going to be googling for any of these “key words”, but they are new ways of making shoes so I had to create names for the techniques.
Actually, the techniques may not be all that new, but having the directions and patterns all in one book is a first, I think.
So, to describe what a “Nomoc” is, I have to tell you what a “Yesmoc” is, which is a moccasin. A generic moccasin is made when the wearer stands on a piece of leather that is larger than the sole of the foot, so the excess is gathered up around the foot, where it is stitched to a piece of leather on the top of the foot.
With a Nomoc, you stand on a piece of leather (or a piece of leather with a thin rubbery bottom sole, as in the shoe above), but it hardly gathers up around the foot at all – just 1/4″ is added to your foot pattern.
To make this Nomoc, I cut out a pattern for a ghillie upper from How to Make Simple Shoes for Women with your own two hands! and stitched it to the sole, from the outside. Of course one needs to know where to punch the stitching holes, which is an important piece of information that will be found in the new book.
While I’m at it, I’ll share that Lomocs are made much like moccasins, with about a 5/8″ border of leather added to the foot pattern. They can have unlimited styles of uppers attached to them. “Fomocs” are another name for Soles with an Edge – instead of leather being gathered as it comes up around the foot, a band has been stitched to the sole, so there are no gathers, giving the shoes a little more of a “cosmopolitan” look, as opposed to the “casual” look of Lomocs.
I hope to complete the book in the next month or so – a big push will come when my husband goes on a two-week-paddle in Maine in July.