If you have ordered The Simple Shoemaking Handbook and would like to verify that the patterns are being printed at the correct size, here’s the lengths of the soles, from the farthest-out (Lomoc) dash-line outside of the toe dot to the farthest-out (Lomoc) dash-line outside of the heel dot:
6 – 10 7/8″
7 – 11 1/4″
8 – 11 1/2″
9 – 11 3/4″
10 – 12″
Felt is a wonderful shoemaking material: like leather, it doesn’t unravel, so you don’t have to be concerned about seams coming apart. Felt can be obtained by wet-felting, by purchasing 2mm 100% wool, or by felting 100% wool coats.
Felt shoes are common, but most are unexciting. Craftspeople create amazing handmade felt which begs to be used in shoemaking. Just google “handmade felt shoes” on Pinterest and you’ll see an inspiring selection.
The directions and patterns in this small book are for making one-piece “flat” shoes. The kit that accompanies it contains a pair of felt/natural rubber soles or felt/leather soles with stitch holes punched out, so all you need to do is make the uppers and stitch them to the soles.Waxed braided thread is also included in the kit, along with a glover’s stitching needle.
Note that these shoes will be totally ecological, an important selling point if you decide to make felt shoes to sell.
Of course you need to order the correct size of sole, since they will not correspond perfectly to the size you usually wear. When you order a kit, the pdf of How to Make Felt Shoes with felt/natural rubber or felt/leather soles will be sent to you by email. Use the directions and patterns to make mock-up shoes before letting me know what size soles you would like: they will then be sent out along with thread and needle.
The felt topsole will be visible around the edge of the shoe. You can choose the color of felt you want for your topsole from these choices:
Directions and patterns for making soles and other shoe styles can be found in The Simple Shoemaking Handbook.
I am available to teach the felt shoemaking process via facetime or skype to “wet felters” – and also those using commercial felt or felted coats. For those of you who teach felt-making, students can gather and “wet-felt” one weekend day and get sized for soles, order the soles from me, then gather again with their soles and transform their felt into footwear.
Please email me with any questions about this process.
I have a variety of soling sheets and unit soles for sale in my store. I will sell the soling sheets pre-cut to the size of soles in The Simple Shoemaking Handbook. Or, you can send me a custom sole pattern and I’ll cut it for you. This way, the soling sheets as used as completely as possible.
Some of the soles can be stitched to the uppers, because I am able to cut a groove on the bottom surface for the stitches to lie in. There are some types that I cannot cut a groove in, such as this Italian soling, so these soles would need to be cemented to the uppers with Barge or other shoe contact cement.
I invite you to look at the soling in my store, and email me – sharon@simpleshoemaking.com with any soling questions you have.
Just before heading to bed, I took one last look on Pinterest – and came across this shoe! Of course I followed this Japanese shoemaker around social media, and am amazed and inspired by his work. I would like to take one little feature and use it to enliven shoes that I make, such as the stitching on the heel piece. What fun he has brought to the world! Except now I’ll never get to sleep, as visions of these shoes dance in my head! (Ellen, this link is for you!)
This shoe was made by a student with extra-wide and thick feet. We made a custom pattern following directions from my youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8RMcXhw40c. Directions are also in The Simple Shoemaking Handbook, http://simpleshoemaking.com/wp/product/pdf-the-simple-shoemaking-handbook/. The shoes have a thick layer of natural rubber soling, so she finally has a comfortable pair of shoes that she can wear.
“A step in the right direction” soling makes shoemaking SO simple. These soles are available in three material combinations: all-leather, a leather topsole with natural rubber bottom sole, or 3mm wool felt with a natural rubber sole. The soles are pre-punched with stitching holes that match the upper patterns in The Simple Shoemaking Handbook.
The leather part of the soles is available in either natural or brown.
The soles are to be used for making “stitch-ins”, my new favorite simple shoemaking technique. They can also be used to make “stitch-downs” – shoes in which the uppers flare out on to the sole to be stitched.
“Stitch-ins” are made by turning the bottom edge of uppers in, so they give the appearance of being fully-lasted shoes. However, lasts aren’t needed, although they are helpful for stretching a stitched shoe to its full shape (you can make lasts using directions in The Simple Shoemaking Handbook – upper patterns are in this book also).
You can make flats, chukka boots/vellies, derbies – just about any style of upper using these soles.
To experience this shoemaking process, first order The Simple Shoemaking Handbook for directions and patterns, then make mock-up shoes from felt (two layers preferable, held together by adhesive) for the uppers and corrugated cardboard from a USPS box for the sole. Use either the stitch-down or stitch-in process to make your shoes. Once you are as sure as possible of the sole size you need, decide what materials you’d like your soles made of, and what color you’d like your uppers to be, then you’re ready to order the shoemaking kit. The cost of The Simple Shoemaking Handbook will be deducted from the cost of the shoemaking kit.
If you find that the mock-ups based on the patterns from the Handbook don’t fit as you would like, you can order custom-soles, at additional cost. A description of the process for making customized shoes is in the Handbook, and there’s also a video that demonstrates the process – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8RMcXhw40c.
And, if you’d like personal assistance during any of these processes, i’m available to consult with via facetime or skype.
If you’d like to make shoes the simple way, you can do so in the comfort of your own home. You might even gather a small group who want to learn together. Here’s how it works. I send you a shoemaking kit that contains a sole in the size you request – it has a vegetable-tanned topsole and a bottom sole of either natural rubber or vegetable-tanned leather. The uppers are made from leather upholstery remnants.
A 1/4″ wool felt and natural rubber sole is also available, if you’d prefer not to use leather.
You will receive as much FaceTime/Skype-time with me as is needed to guide you through the shoemaking process.
To determine what size kit to order – since the kit size is rarely the same as the size you have been wearing, it’s important to make a mock-up before making your first pair. Use felt to make the upper, and USPS corrugated cardboard for making the sole. Upon payment of the $100.00 fee, you will be sent a pdf of The Simple Shoemaking Handbook, and you can make mock-ups until you get a good fit.
The kit includes a piece of upper leather in the color you choose, lining for the upper and “veg” leather for a toe box, vegetable-tanned topsole, natural rubber or leather bottom sole, two “egg eye” harness needles, sufficient waxed braided thread, and a small bottle of Aqualim 315 non-toxic cement with a brush. You will need to purchase leather-cutting scissors and a 00 punch – either a hand-squeezed “spring” punch or a drive punch that you hit with a hammer (with a suitable surface underneath).
If we see that the mock-up is just not going to work for your feet, you can make custom patterns. I’ll work with you through this – a video of the process is on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8RMcXhw40c.
Once you let me know what size, bottom sole material and color of upper leather you’d like, the kit will be prepared and sent out.
I have created the box above as a “stage” for demonstrating simple shoemaking. I place my hands inside the box to demonstrate each step – my iPhone is taped over a hole in the top of the box. The camera lens peers down onto the action. Of course I don’t want to apply tape to my phone, so I tear off a piece of duct tape several inches longer than the width of my phone. I adhere another piece of tape to the center of the first piece, so your phone isn’t taped, but there’s sticky stuff on both ends – see photo below.
Windows are cut out of the upside-down box with a utility knife – the windows are needed so there is adequate light on the workspace.
This box needs to be re-created by the student, so I can see what her/his hands are doing.
The workshop instruction happens in spurts: a student may be ready to cut out upper parts, so we’ll disconnect until the student calls back, then we’ll work on the next step. It usually takes most of a six-hour-day to make the shoes, but the project doesn’t need to be done all in one day.
I love to offer the workshop to small groups, so if yourself and a few friends would like to work together, please email me and we can discuss the options.
Please consider taking a workshop, and becoming a shoemaker!
I happened upon these shoes in the New York Times article “In Fashion: Flowing, Fanciful white dresses. They are so easy to make using my center-seam patterns. The caption said, “price upon request” so I did call and found that no one actually knows the cost, they are being made in collaboration with Sia and will be released in the spring. Looking at prices for other similar shoes, they will probably sell for around $200.00. There’s another style on Repetto’s website that looks similar, that has a huge bow across the instep. You could do that!
You could make a pair of these in every color! It seems that there are criss-cross black laces across the topline of this white minimalist shoe.
The directions and patterns for center-seam “ballerina-style” shoes are in my book, The Simple Shoemaking Handbook. Here’s a “turn-shoe” done ballet-style with elastic along the topline – it could be cut a little lower above the toes, then eyelets and a criss-cross cord would complete the look. Or, it could be made as a “stitch-in” shoe, with no visible seam. These directions are in the book also.
I enjoyed participating in the Maker Faire in Queens, NYC this past weekend – 600 vendors, I believe…I contacted my NYC friend to see if we could get together: she said “not on Saturday night, because my husband and I are going to Paul Simon’s “Farewell Concert” at Corona Park. That’s where the Faire was being held, so, we got tickets too!
Robots, LED lights, “cosplay” and 3-d printing seem to be the big draws at Maker Faires, but fortunately there is a selection of traditional crafts as well.
On Friday night there was a free paella dinner for all Maker Faire vendors – plus an open bar! My conversations were so rich, from a couple using art to show the problem of trash in space, to huge puppets, to a woman about my age (elderly with turquoise hair) who does these Faires all over the country, teaching young people how to knit, crochet, needlepoint etc. So I’ll be teaching them how to make shoes!
I feel recommitted to the importance of teaching shoemaking, especially ecological shoemaking….
I will be demonstrating simple shoemaking techniques at the NYC Maker Faire in the The New York Hall of Science next weekend – September 22 and 23. I’m especially eager to show how simple shoemaking can be, especially when using my vegetable-tanned soles with pre-punched stitching holes.
I’ll also be demonstrating the stitching of the First Footsteps toddler shoemaking kits – a couple of groups that are in need of financial support are stitching these shoes now for sale – some are refugees from Myanmar living in a camp in Malaysia that a friend regularly visits, and others are Spanish-speaking immigrants here in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.
It would be delightful if any of you simple shoemakers in the NYC area could stop by. It seems that most of the participants are young and deeply into 3-d-printing, LED, and robots, but there will be a section for Traditional Crafts – and so much more!
And, I’ll be vending at the Boston Mini-Faire October 6 and 7, which is at the Children’s Museum on the Harbor. Again, I would love to see anyone who has an interest in simple shoemaking.