Time for some tuning and repairs

Yesterday and today I've had two requests for shoe repairs from my wife, and some tidying of those marvellous vintage lasts I presented in the last post:

Warning! Contains a few bad quality shots. Darn it, my shaking hands...

First up was the rasping of the high heel lasts to get the shapes smooth and flowing.

Next, my wife asked to do some shoe magic and transform her red suede shoes to black because they didn't suite any of her clothing. No problem, madam! There's some thread for sewing the tips by hand, and some leather dye.

So I took the pretty shoes to my lap, and before dyeing they're always good to clean first. Use a suede brush if it's just dust.

Some vigorous brushing!

After cleaning, it was time to apply the dye with a cloth. Sorry for the bad shot.

For comparison, here's the before -> after shot.

They got a nice reddish black tone to them, and the stitching is still visibly red. Nice!

Then it was time to sew the tip rubbers by hand with a special hook.

The Paubellarinas had suffered, since I had made the rubber band too tight, and now they had lost their flexibility. Time for a change!

I decided to cut the bands abit longer, to see what kind of effect it'll have while worn.