Dearest Sewing Lovers!

I thought that this was my FIRST attempt at making a pair of shoes, but then remembered when I was a child of around 10, and VERY into crafting, and I got some bark from a birch tree and tied two pieces to my feet with lengths of thick dark-blue wool. I recall too how the older kids at the tiny primary school I attended, made cruel fun of this; not just a passing comment, but significant meanness in ridiculing me until I took the rustic sandals off.

How much more into making shoes might I have been, if I hadn't been bullied, and instead been encouraged, even?! I dreamed back to my earlier self, hugged her warmly, took her hand and led her to my studio, imagining her removed from that situation, and supported instead to delve deep into the craft of shoes.

It seems like a long time to leave, between making my first pair and my second pair, now - around 40 years later - and my approach is quite painfully slow... figuring out each step of the way, as it unfolds... and taking time to sit and look at the stitches, feel into the shape I want to form, think about using different materials - visioning the trajectory of shoe-making bliss...!

So far I have taken apart a beautiful leather miniskirt, and shaped the soles of the shoes. The stitch unpicking almost got me to write a post about how, in deconstructing and reconstructing clothes, there is as much time spent taking things apart, as putting them together! Especially with the delicate leather: I ripped it in one place, which spoiled a part I might have used, but mostly I managed to unpick one stitch at a time.

Once the leather was 'freed', I started to think on how the shoe would be formed: I loved musing on this, and now have various 'designs' in my mind for where to go next. My new good friend Madeliene also showed me her gorgeous handmade shoes bought in a market in Spain: it is beautiful how many ways we can wrap the feet, and I am kind of astounded at how it has taken me sooooooooo long to pick up the leather, when I really have craved making my own shoes in fricking decades...

Our feet are so fundamentally important, and I do choose good shoes from my favourite secondhand stall by Franco, BUT it is a wholly different ritual, taking a long time to put one's feet on paper, and on cloth, and form a covering that is perfectly matched to these specific feet... and to have an intention to master this work, and make all the shoes I always wanted!

So I am excited to have then cut and then roughly stitched two layers of felted-ish wool together (from the sleeve of an old jumper/sweater), and cut two layers of the skirt leather, and thought long and hard about how to do the permanent stitching to construct the shoe shape.

I then elected to make a template of sorts: outlining my foot on a big thick piece of card took me back to school days too! I cut first the precise outline of the foot as it prints itself on the floor, then made another layer of card which extends out from under that one.

This allows me to have the stitch holes in a place where they should - at least for a soft, indoor shoe like the one I am making now - sit nicely around the edges of my feet. The template stitch-holes I measured 5mm apart, which to me seems like a nice size of stitch for this weight of shoe and this kind of leather, and indoor use.

The final stage of this inital phase of the shoe-making, was to prick the holes - through the holes in the template - and into the two layers of the leather, which will sit above and below the wool layer, in the end - giving a soft but hopefully robust foot protection for around my home.

I did try too, to sew around the soles with a heavier thread than usual in the sewing machine - but yuck! - it did not work at all: the soles need to be held more firmly, but the mechanical stitching process pulled them out of alignment - waaah! It might have been quicker to sew by machine, but for the magic of these foot garments, I love that my hands will make every stitch... mmmmmmm.

I so look forward to sharing more, and would LOVE to hear any adventures in handsewn shoe-making that you have done: I am SOOO inspired by beginning this dream I've had, as it might be the most central part of my loving Making Clothes Magical Again, and it is finally happening - think it will unlock a LOT of creativity, confidence and potential, as I move through the end of this first year of Mastery of Needlework! Woohoo!!

LoVE!!

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