Ooh, look, more shoes!
Serena sent me this fabric from her stash. Aren’t the bright colours fabulous?
This pair were slightly too small to fit onto my lasts, which means that you can see a bit more of the construction. All of the shoes so far have eight eyelets around the back of the heel. These have a ribbon threaded through, to fasten the shoes and adjust the fit.
The shoes do stay put without the ribbons, but I just prefer them this way.
This is the next pair of shoes – a pretty gothy pair with skulls and roses. I’ve actually made two pairs of these, and I’m extraordinarily tempted to make a third pair for myself
I don’t want to make eleven identical posts about the prototype shoes, so I’m hoping that the fabulous variety of fabrics will speak for themselves.
(Unless I keep making them in the same fabrics, of course…)
These are the first pair of shoes to emerge from my Shed – and aren’t they pretty?
My friend Chris (who teaches quilting and makes quilts to commission) provided the fabric, which is covered with sparkly copper spiderwebs on a purple and green background. The shoes are lined with purple organic cotton, and I thought the green organza ribbons made the perfect finishing touch.
They’ve been declared “lovely and comfy” which is a good start – I look forward to hearing how Chris gets on with them – if it ever stops raining long enough for her to wear them!
This is what a shoemaker looks like. Well-ventilated, but slightly fuzzy around the edges.
The glue I’m using to stick the soles onto my prototype shoes is absolutely revolting. It’s a very strong solvent-based glue, and the warnings that come with it are a bit frightening. There’s no denying that it’s good at its job, but I’d quite like to find an alternative that doesn’t smell so bad!
(I’ve been asked to send in a photo of myself to accompany some interview questions for a magazine… I don’t think I’ll be sending them this one!)
These are some of the cork midsoles for the prototype shoes – and those are the three pairs of scissors that have hurt my wrist, hurt my thumb and given me a blister while I’ve been cutting them out. Ouch!
I’ve discovered that scissors are easier (for me) than a knife, for making a nice clean cut and leaving my fingertips intact.
The cork itself is in the form of floor tiles. They’re 4mm thick, nice and dense, and will eventually mould a little to the shape of your feet as you wear the shoes. They’re also much easier to store than enormous great sheets of shoemaking cork, and I can take advantage of discount days at local DIY stores.
Speaking of which… I’m off to Wickes, to give my poor old hands a break from cutting, and to buy myself a stronger pair of scissors!
I realise that you can’t see the spotted lace in this picture – you’ll just have to trust me that it’s there! (It’s the same as the lace on the Regency-ish dress.)
This is my very first pair of completely handmade shoes that are suitable for wearing outside. They have 4mm thick ridged rubber soles, held on with the most revoltingly stinky glue I’ve ever used. And that’s saying something, having used Cow Gum for years when I was a design student.
I’ve been slowly cutting out lots and lots of layers to make the prototype shoes for my patient testers, but I wasn’t entirely happy with the pair I made back in April. It turned out to be really difficult to trim off the welt without leaving an untidy mess, showing all the construction layers. I wanted to make a test pair with the welts turned inwards, to satisfy myself that it could be done neatly enough, and that the shoes would still be strong enough around the edges.
I’ll be wearing this pair to go dancing in this evening, so I’ll be able to report back very soon on how well they hold up!
When I agreed to make eleven pairs of prototype shoes I hadn’t really thought through how long it would take to cut out all the bits. Each shoe has four layers for the upper, three layers for the midsole, and then the outer sole. That’s eight pieces per shoe, sixteen per pair, which means I need to cut out A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX pieces of fabric, cork and rubber.
I’ve made a start, but I have a feeling that this may take some time…
Hello Internet Lovelies, you might have noticed that I disappeared for a little while there, without so much as a warning. At the end of March my contract at work came to an end, so everything was pretty hectic as you can probably imagine. And then at the beginning of April I went off to That London for a week, to learn how to make fancy bras. Very exciting, but also very tiring. And next week I’m disappearing again, when I go into hospital for a little operation. (Hence the slippers, above.) Nothing very exciting, don’t worry, but it’ll take me a while to wake up from the anaesthetic and start sewing again.
Before I go, I plan to write a whole bunch of posts that will magically appear over the next couple of weeks. There’s so much I haven’t told you about, so I’d better get blogging!
Today I have been mostly making my own shoes. They’re not quite finished yet – they’re waiting for the welts to be trimmed (I need good light and a sharp knife) and a rubber layer to be glued onto the cork soles. But as soon as that’s done, I’ll have a pair of wearable outdoor shoes!
What I need to do now is make shoes for a small number of people who’d be willing to test them out for me – to wear them over the summer, and let me know how they fare. I’d have to charge towards the cost of the materials, which would be £20 per pair. (Shoe soling is expensive.) I’d want about five or six people, ideally.
The prototype shoes would be in the same style as the ones in the photo. They have eyelets going around the back of the shoe for the ribbons (this means that the ribbons are interchangeable), and a removable insole which is lightly padded. I can make them in any size.
In the meantime I’ll be making soft-soled versions for indoor wear, until I get your feedback on the outdoor-soled prototypes.
Is anybody willing to help me test out these experimental shoes for £20 a pair?
If so, leave me a comment or send me an email and I’ll be in touch!
UPDATE: I now have all the shoe testers I need, thank you very much!
Image © Fairysteps
These little beauties are a pair of custom made Mustardseed boots, handmade by Fairysteps.
I’ve been reading the Fairysteps blog for quite a while now, and every time Ren posts a new pair of shoes I have to keep my fingers crossed that they’re not in my size in order to prevent my bank manager from crying.
To see these boots in all sort of different colourways, you could look at Fairysteps on Flickr… or you could go and visit the Fairysteps Etsy store, and find out what’s in stock in your size!
For those who prefer not to wear leather, there’s a range of vegan shoes in four colours of Lorica suable material.
If the pointy toes aren’t your style (and whyever not?), there are also a gorgeous range of round-toed pumps with bows or ankle straps or flowers or buttons. And if that’s not enough, there are matching bags and little purses in every colour.
Do you think it would be excessive to have one of each?
Aren’t these felted slippers absolutely magical? If I accidentally found my way through the back of a wardrobe and ended up in a mythical land where it was always winter and never Christmas, these are exactly what I’d want to keep my feet warm while I was there.
They’re hand made in Lithunania by ing00te, who sells them on Etsy.
She also has a blog (which is partially translated into English for those of us who can’t read Lithuanian!), and you can see her beautiful pictures on Flickr.
Some of ing00te’s slippers have cork soles, so that you can wear them outside. I love the detail of the little heel on this pair, the way it echoes the felted swirls on top. Just gorgeous!
Now I have to fight the urge to learn how to make felt slippers, because I need another hobby like a hole in the head. But if you don’t want to fight that urge, you can buy polystyrene lasts and all the wool you’ll need from Wingham Wool Work. There are lots of tutorials online to get you started, but this video from Ray Reynolds seems pretty comprehensive.
I’m just going to look through ing00te’s photostream again. So pretty…
