I have had the good fortune to collaborate with Renee Canady – an accomplished leather worker – on making a pair of sandals, to show what can be done with carving and tooling on footwear –  that isn’t a pair of cowboy boots! She did the carving, tooling, painting and dyeing, and I assembled the sandal.

Aren’t they gorgeous! I hope you’re getting plenty of opportunity to show off your amazing works of art, Renee, now that lilies and daffodils are actually blooming.

Questions for Renee:

Am I right that you first carved the band, then tooled it, then coated the sandal completely with neets foot oil and let it dry over night.

Yes, that was my process.

How did you make such a beautiful edge on the leather sole and band?

This is an edge beveler http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/search/searchresults/8076-296.aspx that you run down the edges on top and then on the bottom, then dampen the leather, not soaking wet just damp, then you use http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/search/searchresults/8122-00.aspx which is a slicker and they come in different types. There is a wooden one that has multiple sizes in one tool that I like a lot. With the slicker you just rub it back and forth on the damp edges until it kinda smooths the leather together. People also rub beeswax across the finished edge, but if you choose that path be sure your dying is complete because additional dye WILL NOT stick to the beeswax.

If I were making the entire sandal myself I would stitch the sole and upper together, bevel the top edge (which is now the top of the strap) and the bottom of the sole, wet, and use the slicker so both pieces would now look blended as one. I would then cement it to the rubber sole.

On this project I could treat the edges after carving because it wouldn’t matter when I did it, since each piece was being used as a separate piece of leather. 

What was the weight of the leather for the soling and the band?

The weight of the sole was 8-9 ounce and the strap is 4-5 ounce. I usually purchase my vegetable-tanned leather from Tandy Leather Factory. I dyed the edges with a product called Edge Kote.

Did you finish the edges with hand tools?

Yes, the beveler and slicker are both done by hand. On the Tandy Leathercraft site there are a few free videos, one of which is the use of an edge beveler.  I used a #4 beveler for the sole and a #2 for the strap. The thicker the leather the higher in number you want. The wooden edge slicker is better because it is for many weights of leather. The plastic one will work but since it is only like a $2 difference I would go with the wooden one. It kind of looks like a bobbin from an old spin wheel.

If you use two layers of leather, be sure not to bevel their edges until you have cemented them together. You don’t want to cement two finished edges against each other or you may have a small gap on the very edge. When you use two thicknesses of leather and bevel one side of each, then slick them, you won’t be able to tell there are two leathers there, it will just blend them into one.

What paint did you use on your carving?

I used Fiebing’s acrylic dye which is the colored paint you see. A cheap secret to that acrylic paint from the craft store that are $0.88 will also work. For the sandals I used the Fiebing’s acrylic dye though. So, you paint the colored areas first, let dry completely, then use a resist of some sort over the color like Super Sheen or Resolene. I let it dry for about 30 mins or so and then recoat with the Super Sheen/Resolene. This time dry over night. These products will resist any other dye you use after they have dried well. 

How did you dye the leather?

I used a product called medium brown antique gel. I used it as my dye because I love that color of brown. I put a generous amount on sheep’s wool scraps, “mushed” it in a bit and then just went to town with it, covering the entire sandal. You will see areas that are a bit darker/lighter but you can always add more gel to make areas darker or use a soft cloth with a TOUCH of water to blend in the areas that are too dark, it will lift some dye out.

Next, use a soft cloth to buff the sandal. You will notice where you resisted the dye it will look like some is on the colored areas but it will buff off, but will dull your color a tad also.

Now you may or may not want to use another finish on it like a spray finish from Tandy.

Then I used the Edge Kote on the edges. Next I used Aussie conditioner from Tandy and mush it all in there. The leather will absorb what it wants and kind of reject what it doesn’t need. Then next day if it appears greasy-looking just wipe the rest off that the leather has rejected.

A few cold months ago, I had the pleasure of teaching a one-day shoemaking workshop to Rhode Island School of Design students who had just the previous day returned from a shoe-design trip to Italy. Kathleen Grevers, Senior Critic, Apparel Design, and Khipra Nichols, Associate Professor, Industrial Design, shepherded twenty design students from a variety of media on the shoe-design trip. They each created a shoe as a culmination of all they had learned.

I was so eager to see their creations, but unfortunately on the day of the showing New England had a major snowstorm. All was cancelled. So,I had not seen the student creations until a DVD of photos recently was sent to me.

What a delightful collection! I especially appreciated so many media being represented – you can guess who came from an apparel, metal-work, or industrial design background.

The album of shoes can be seen on my Simple Shoemaking facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.174639619358456.1073741826.122659024556516&type=1

So, which is your favorite, and why?

Which would you actually like to wear? (apparently wearability wasn’t a requirement!)

Visiting the facebook page of the author, Megan Nicolay, www.generation-t.com, inspired me to make a T-shirt baby shoe that I could post on her site. I had not made any “T-shirt baby shoes”, so, using the tutorial for the “First Walker” baby shoes that was recently posted on my blog,  I tackled this assignment and was pleased with the results, seen here.

Using Natalie Chanin’s stitching technique, the threads are knotted on the outside, and the running stitch is used by the miles.

I used three layers of T-shirts, from scraps left over from a dress I am making for my 4-month-old granddaughter Millie. Now she’ll be “matchy-matchy”! If I had some double-sided sticky interfacing I would have used it to give the shoe a little more “body”.

Here’s my creation! As usual with shoemakers, now I have to make another one. (And yes, those are spring bulbs breaking through the earth under the shoe – yay!)

I like the blogger Katya’s moccasin-making technique; I planned to do something similar in making the “plug” (the part of a moccasin that goes over the top of the foot) with a friend who wants to make shoes for refugees who have wider ankles and feet than can easily fit in U.S. shoes. We will be making bellows tongue boots from How to Make Simple Shoes for Women to hopefully solve the problem. The leg of this style boot can expand or contract according to how tightly the laces are tied.  Hopefully these boots will be comfortable for the refugees as well as anyone who has swollen ankles.

I was delighted to see how she solved the problems of making espadrille soles – she has created a totally-natural sole that looks substantial and attractive.

Another great gift of her blog is this German booklet on shoemaking – how wonderful it would be to have it translated!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7y2hRuk6oroUlYxcWt2Y2FVdk0/edit?usp=sharing

Here’s a traditional espadrille-making video, which I find especially interesting to view in conjunction with viewing Katya’s technique for making the soles ourselves.

This url goes to multiple videos about alpargatas; the dearest one is entitled “espardenyers”, with the most charming “thumb piano”  music.

I made myself a pair of brown boots with laces several years ago. Unfortunately I didn’t make the pattern quite right, so even when the laces were laced as tightly as possible, the boots still had too much room in them. I didn’t like the way the sides slumped down, so one day I decided to cut the strips of leather off between the two rows of eyelets. At least then I could tighten the laces so the boots would fit!

However, they didn’t look too good with that chopped-off strip quite visible down the front of the boot, so I decided to put a leather flap across the eyelet area, which would snap to the boot. I found enough matching leather for the two flaps, so they were stitched in place.

That looked pretty good, except it became clear that one flap wasn’t enough, the thin edge between the eyelets was still visible higher up the boot. I thought a flap that fastened with buckles might look better than two with snaps. Then, since I had no more of this particular brown leather, I thought I would use another color – and I had a mauve-purple that looks good with anything I wear. So, the purple flap was installed.

I had been thinking for years maybe that I needed to make a black pair of boots to wear with my grey corduroys – brown just wasn’t the right footwear to wear with gray I had learned many years ago…. but why not embellish these boots in some manner that would bring a touch of gray into my brown boots – then I could comfortably wear them with gray pants! I devised a little “collage” of the purple, green and gray that I thought I would stitch to the brown flap (I also have a green pair of pants that would look “cool” if I had a bit of green on my boots – as “cool” as a 68-year-old woman can look!) In the photo below I temporarily taped the “collage” on the flap where I would have put it if RISD students hadn’t advised me otherwise, for you to see..(does anyone think they would have liked it this way?)

But the little mosaic look “contrived”… Since I was soon to do a quickie shoemaking workshop for a group of students at Rhode Island School of Design, I thought – I’ll present my design dilemma to the students, and ask for their advice as to how to best bring these colors into my boots!

And, I got a couple of really exciting suggestions that I have now incorporated and I’m so pleased with the results! One student said, “Change the color of the tab at the heel  to one of the other colors you want. Another student said, “Put colored leather strips around the edge of the lower flap.” I realized that their thoughts involved making color accents more integrated into the boot instead of being an “artsy” design plopped down onto the front of the boot.

So here’s how my boots look now. I love them, I wish I could do nothing but make these boots with custom color accents – but maybe one of you reading this will turn this idea into a thriving business!

Well, I learned that there can be, I saw it in their notebooks.

Take the average “derby-style” shoe; it usually has a clean curved line between the vamp in the front and the heel section. Well, what if that line undulated in and out between the two shoe parts – I can’t wait to see  it made.

I have to wait until February 8, at which time there will be a critical evaluation of the shoe that each of the twenty students will make as , and an evening presentation. I look forward to being there and taking photos so you can marvel at the results as well as myself.

I had some confusion about the purpose of the tour and the make-up of the class; I had imagined that the students were aspiring shoemakers who had learned how to make shoes “the Italian way” on their trip. I thought I was there to show them a “simple shoemaking option” they might use in making their presentation shoe. Instead, they were design students from many different fields of study, such as Industrial Design, who wanted to focus on shoe design as inspiration for a new way to look at projects they were already working on.

So, instead of teaching “simple shoemaking”, I took the audacious step of teaching “complex shoemaking”, meaning that the bottom edge of the shoe upper was made longer, then wrapped around the last to be cemented to the bottom of the topsole that had been nailed to the bottom of the last. I have almost never made a shoe using this technique, but with the simple materials that we were working with it worked out fine.

I brought children’s lasts for the students to practice pattern-making on; they were instructed to cover the lasts with two layers of masking tape lying in different directions for added strength, then to draw their shoe onto the tape. Once that was accomplished they used an X-acto knife to cut their pattern off of the last. They then attempted the task of changing a 3-dimensional object into a 2-dimensional pattern.

After learning some basics of this process, they made their pattern, then a felt “mock-up” of their shoe. This required some ability to envision the finished project, and therefore put seams where the shoe parts overlapped so the parts could be stitched together, as well as to add the 1/2″ to the bottom edge of the upper for adhering the upper to the bottom of the topsole.

By the end of the day many cute little felt shoes began to materialize. For some of the students, creating a unique sole was an important part of the design of their shoe, so for that they will have to explore in other directions as I have no experience with making soles from anything beyond a flat sheet of material (usually natural rubber). Yet viewing the woodworking and other studios we passed through on our way to the classroom, there are ample resources at RISD for making just about anything that one can visualize. If only all the students in the American school system had access to such richness of materials and instruction for creative inspiration!

I have described my process of making the moccasin-boot in the first (of many to come) TUTORIAL that I have posted on my blog; if you scroll down under PAGES on the right-hand-side of the page, there you’ll see TUTORIAL: How to Make the Side-Seam Moccasin-Boot.

A pattern for making the boot is included at the end of the directions. I welcome feedback on how this tutorial works for you, what questions you have – and then I welcome photos of the unique boots that you have made!

This book:

– describes the design process from inspiration to final presentation

– includes practical tips and step-by-step guides to collection design

– showcases the work of key designers and footwear experts

There are amazing shoes and boots in this book, this is my favorite pair:

( aku bäckström uses various interesting materials and finishes, such as felt and paint)

OMG (this is the first time I have used this expression), check out this Finnish designer’s webpage www.akubackstrom.com for photos of more footwear guaranteed to shake up your ideas of how shoes should be.

Then design and make some yourself to shake our ideas of how shoes should be and please send photos!

Here are a couple of pairs of shoes that my daughter recently made for friends who have also recently had babies. The pattern is in How to Make Simple Shoes for Children, in the smallest size, which is for a 3 1/2″ long foot. Since these leathers were so soft, she made them with the seams inside the shoe instead of the usual stitch-down process that we usually use. It seems to be easier for those with such pliable feet to get shoes on made in this way. One could put a little pad of wool fleece (I have a box of it cleaned, get in touch if you’re interested)  in there also to make sure the inside-seam didn’t rub on feet, or a piece of lambskin.