Me made May - all about the shoes!

My pledge for me made May went like this...

"pledge to focus on my footwear and try and make some quality shoes during the month of May. I also pledge to not buy any fabric and only sew from my stash for the whole month." 

I did focus on my shoes, but I did buy 1 piece of fabric, so I failed ever so slightly!

I chose to focus on footwear as an incentive to get making. My hand made garments are already in heavy rotation and my style is well developed, so I wanted to set myself a task for the month.

I have been wanting to delve back into shoes and sharpen up my skills ever since I bought these gorgeous new leathers from the Misan fabric shop on Goldhawk road.

 The only pair of shoes I had at the beginning of the month were these sandals, which I made earlier in the year. As I'm still experimenting, these were not my most successful make. I was still trying not to use adhesives, but the way I constructed them meant there was too much stress in some areas of the sole and the layers wanted to pull apart and also the turquoise leather is so stiff that they are hard on my toes. I tweaked and altered them until I decided that they were a great learning curve and took them apart completely. Like I said though, they were a great pair for learning all the things I would do differently when I make them again!

Note - I have since bought some water based adhesive that I am more than happy to use! Renia Aquilim

I was determined to make some closed toe shoes for my next pair. I had been wanting to, but somehow making a pledge gave me the push I needed to just get on with it!

I did not photograph the making of these as I just needed to get making and quite frankly, I have no idea what I'm doing. Ha! I hand sewed the yellow upper and strap to the insole in the same way I devised on my first pair of shoes here. I did use adhesive on this pair and also nails to make the outer sole extra secure.

 They are not identical twins, but rather closely related. the yellow uppers were not successfully matched and covered more of one foot than the other, but I trimmed it and made them as good as I could without ruining them completely and now they've been well worn you'd never know ;-)

Everything to do with making shoes for me is a learning process!!!

 The result is that I am super happy with this pair and have worn them for much of May!

I do get a lot of requests for tutorials on how to make shoes, but it's kind of difficult for me, because as I just mentioned, I am constantly learning and still establishing what I want my method to be. I don't want to pass on my limited knowledge knowing that it doesn't guarantee success, but I had a shoe refashion project on my list that is easy enough to share.

 This pair of blue shoes have been sitting in the garage unloved for a while with the idea of transforming them. I love the look of them as they were, but they were incredibly uncomfortable.

The synthetic lining caused blisters every time and the raised foot bed hurt the bottom of my toes even though it was soft. The main issue of these shoes appears to be the amount of plastic in their make up, so with great satisfaction I ripped them apart! Be warned though, industrial processes produce very well made shoes that are HARD to take apart.

I used the inner sole as a template to cut some card to cover the gaps in the outsole. It is that washable paper leather stuff so pretty hard wearing, not actual cardboard from a cereal packet.

I glued it to the sole unit and then cut and glued a slightly smaller foam piece to cushion the sole. The foam is used for bra padding and came from a closed down lingerie factory. You find a use for everything eventually...

Next up  cut and glued some leather to complete my insole and because the original upper was sewn in place I punched holes to sew my new insole to the outsole.

I then trimmed the leather in line with the outsole with a craft knife.

My pattern prep was not very technical. I chose a simple slider style and wrapped a strip of paper over the top of my foot and rubbed along the edge of the outsole for my cutting line. I made sure to push the paper under my foot slightly to allow for the stitch line.

I marked my stitch holes and basted the upper in place to check the fit. I did have to remove 0.5cm before finally stitching the shoe together with a strong linen thread.

These are infinitely more wearable and I'm so pleased to have saved them from the garage. Also, it seems I have a real love of citrus coloured shoes!

The before and after both look good except I can wear one version without crying.

So obviously this refashion will not work for every shoe, but it gives you an idea that there is more creative scope to your shoes than you think!

I hope you had a good and inciteful May! x

My first hand made denim shoes!

As mentioned I my previous post, I have started and finished making a pair of shoes! It felt like I just really needed to power through from start to finish even though at times I wasn't confident they were working or if I was going to like them, but this was an important process for me.

First of all, I am totally proud of these shoes. I made the last, the pattern, the heel and all the things! The construction is something I am working on in my own way and I am slowly trying to form a way of making a pair of shoes that do not require glue. There are some really innovative designs out there for no glue shoes, but for now I just want to make fairly standard designs, as I am just getting my head around what shoe design even means and what I want it to look like! I feel like I need to get hands on with a whole process to confidently be able to think about how I can adapt it to my own desires or aesthetic (very much like how I approached bra making).

Enough about that though and more about these shoes. They kind of started out as a very rough mock-up of a shoe idea from some denim scraps. Below is how rough I'm talking here, but I kind of liked where this was going, so back tracked slightly and used this shell to turn into my first real shoe.

As you can see, I literally used the mock-up fabric with raw edges and all which I lined with a thin suede that has been in my stash for a loooong time! I subbed the straps with some leather scraps and topstitched the edges and fixtures of the upper with a jeansy gold topstitch thread.

The heels are stacked leather, which I bought as a massive job lot of scraps. It is suitably thick (5mm), but not what you might immediately select for shoe making. I have no idea what it is, but it has a darker leather central layer, which has a lighter coloured layer on the top and bottom. Almost like it is veneered or like a ply wood looks. You cant really see it in the pictures, but I ike it. It is also has a very soft texture on the cut and sanded edges. I guess this will be a trade mark of any shoes I make for some time as I have 19kg of it!

Everything about this pair of shoes is fairly rustic, even down to the tacked on heels!

The sole and base of the heel is a natural crepe rubber sheet, which I bought from here. I glued the sole on, but nailed the entire heel and base of heel together.

Here they are on! Aren't they cute? How amazing that my fist pair of shoes have gone so well....

Almost, but not quite! They are too long unfortunately. If my foot is rested against the back of the sling back as the picture above then there is quite a lot of room in the toe as per below. This does not make them unwearable, but I expect the toe cap to collapse after a few wears maybe.

If I push my foot to the front of the shoe then there is quite a bit of room behind the ankle. I still haven't worn them out yet, so I need to do that and make a fair assessment, but I have started on another pair of lasts with 0.5cm removed from the front of the foot. I think this is the most logical place to make the adjustment as I like the fit everywhere else. It's hard to know for sure if this is the right thing to do or not.

I have some new old resin lasts to play with now, but I really like using my dodgy homemade ones. I'm keen to make a pair of leather shoes on both and see how I feel about them, but I'm really enjoying analysing my feet in this way.

Now I know some of you want to know more about the construction so rather than do another post about these shoes I'm just going to make this an extra long one!

No pattern making advise here, but check out this site for some ace tutorials!

So I started by gluing my upper to my lining along the top edge and ankle strap using a contact adhesive.

I then cut away the bits of lining that are left in the above picture. I didn't cut them out initially as I felt it would prevent the upper shape from being distorted when I was gluing the two layers together. I then topstitched around all the upper edges with a gold topstitch thread, sewed the loop on my T-bar, sewed up the centre back seam and also attached the leather strap.

Next I positioned the upper on my last and pinned it in place as it is soft enough for pins.

I haven't photographed this part, but I punched holes around my thick leather insole (about 1cm away from the edge) with an awl and handstitched a long running stitch through the holes with a strong linen thread. The theory behind hand stitching the sole is to be able to hand sew the upper to something. Hand sewn uppers I have seen have been sewn to very thick insoles which are carved to reveal a relief channel that can have a thick needle pushed into it. It is a very skilled and labour intensive construction that I'm not sure I can confidently replicate without wanting to throw my shoe out the window, so this is my interpretation of the same concept!

Below is me starting to hand sew the lining to the insole!

Once it was all sewn I trimmed away the excess leather and glued the toe puff to the lining. Again helpfully not photographed, but I used some buckram left over from some hand pleated curtains that I used to make. I think I then glued the upper to the toe puff, but may have only done that on one shoe and not the other, whoops!

I did trim some of the bulkier leather pleats away and then sewed the denim upper to the same linen thread.

The back of the insole has no upper wrapped around it, so I filled this space with a scrap of folded over bias cut denim.

I trimmed my quick fit metal shanks to fit the space and nestle into the denim and glued it onto the insole.

Next up I trimmed three layers of denim to glue onto the front of the insole to make a level-ish surface ready for the outsole.

 I forgot to take a photo of the outsole, but here's a screen grab from a video clip off my Instagram account. I made sure to really hammer it in place once the contact adhesive was ready, as when I tried gluing the crepe sole to a previous pair of sliders, it came unstuck really easily. The mad hammering seems to have done the trick!

The heel is the last bit and was the bit I was most excited about starting and also the most worried about!

I formed an idea of the height and how I would shape it from comparing it to the last and created a block with a slightly stepped top two layers. Traditionally stacked heels are built directly onto the shoe, but I wanted to make mine to attach to the shoe. Now I've done it and kind of understand what I'm aiming for though, I may try building onto the shoe next!

I removed the central core as I could tell the shoe wanted to sit in a hole and then carved away at these top two layers until it fit the back of the shoe in nicely.

I carved away at the sides too, but it is all a bit rough and ready still. I think I need a better blade! (shouldn't really blame my tools ;-)). I could have sworn they looked better than this...

I should add that these leather layers are held together with a few nails at this point, but once I was happy enough, I went to town and hammered loads and loads of nails in to keep it all together!

Finally I attached the heels with some upholstery tacks straight through the insole into the heel. I hammered them in as much as possible to avoid any uncomfortable nubby bits, but if they prove to be annoying I can always glue some leather covered foam there.

Oh, the last bit was actually to position the gold coloured screw in button thing and then they were finished.

Well, that's it in a nutshell! I hope to improve quite substantially with my next pair. I kind of felt like I needed to get a completed pair of shoes under my belt to have some knowledge to build on, but I am excited to move on!

See you shoon! ;-)