Rock'a me baby!

Some randomness from days recently past:

1960's winklepickers with cuban heels. For men. I think they're way elegant. Many consider pointy men's shoes disturbing and vulgar, but let them scream to the comments. Or something.
This picture is hanging from a wall in Kankaanpää shoemaker school.

And here's the proof that goodyear welted, classic and elegant shoes were made for men. In Finland.

And a peek at what I do daily at my desk - at work: This here's some orthopedic shoemaking in it's finest :)
The furthest shoe has a plastic counter and a composite (whatever that means) toe cap. The toe cap has varying layers of carbon fibre and god-knows-what-fibres and they've been laminated on the last with resin, obviously to give extra protection to the toes. The only things I've done here are the heel counters, the insoles, the steel amputation spring below and the whitish rubber protection on the toe caps.

Here's the pair ready and lasted. They're actually derby shoes, but have a shield of somesort over the laces. I don't exactly know why, as the design and patterns are not mine. I just last them.
And a pair of magnificient lasting pliers from Minke, made in deutschland.

And the mockups I'm getting ready soon. I wanted to show this unattractive view of the difficulties one has to face when sewing a zipper on a knee high boot.

A great weekend to you all!

Making Bespoke High heels - Part 9 Everything else

The boots are ready :) But there's a lot of phases to be shown, so I decided to make an mega post, showing some of the phases. This is because I already would want to show you all the boots, but I also want to show the whole process. So here's the 32 images. Don't watch this on your phone ;)

First, the moistened uppers are lasted. This is a picture of the first pull to the front.

The bottom view after some  systematic pulling.

After they're dried completely, I marked the line where I wanted the  patent trim to come to.

I then marked the 10mm allowance line.

Now that the uppers were dried, they assumed the shape of the last. Here they are without the lasts, and next came a phase which was logical but seemed totally nuts at the time: cutting the excess leather from the uppers with scissors. Nuts.

But it all made more sense when I glued the patent trim on it and started stitching.

I wanted to show this picture because it shows the "ugly" side of the uppers. The space between the upper and the lining is something no one usually sees. In this image, I'm tying a knot so that the stitching will look  better outwards. Without double stitches, which are the most common way to lock stitch.

Ta-daa!

Before lasting, The wet heel counter goes between the upper and the lining. Glued of course.

And after some sweating, we've reached this far.

The toe cap made from leather is glued on the tip, rasped to the desired shape and compressed with a hammer for minimal thickness.

And everything is wrapped together with adhesive.

After they have dried for another day,  the staples are removed and all that empty space is filled with a cork material.

Here you see the filling after it's been grinded straight. I'm using a traditional heel iron, which has been heated to help me shape that seat for the heel.

The heel quarter is nailed. This will prevent those uppers from  moving in case the glue fails, and helps to keep it together if the heel needs to be replaced.

The heel is covered with 0,5mm thick patent leather. It could've been even thinner, actually.

With the heel put to place with hot glue and the area where the outer sole leather is grinded, the shoes are just waiting for those soles.

I used a pattern to cut the outer sole leather from a 3.0 to 3.5mm thick vegetable tanned sole leather.

The logo is stamped to the damped leather and the surface is shaved with a piece of broken glass.

I pre-shaped the outer soles before applying adhesive.

Adhesive applying.

The leather is carefully placed on the  bottom. Force is used with a hammer and a bone to compress the sole neatly on.

I cut the excess using a special knife.

The rest of the surface is shaved.

The edge is damped with water and prepared with soap for the next phase.

Using a hot iron to make a neat edge.

After a red dye, I painted the edges with black.

Niina wanted some decent cushioning under her ball of the foot. I first thought that this could've been a bit over exaggerating with it... but I was wrong.

Next up was the decorative bow ties. For them I made two small holes for some waxed threads to be used for the fixing of the bows.

The bow ring is made from patent leather and fastened to the shoe with a knot.

Two flat tubes from black alcantara are stuck to the rings... and voilá! Bow ties :D

 Next up, it's the reveal.

Making High Heel Boots - Part 7 Closing

I've recently learned that "closing", in shoe manufacturing terms, means in fact sewing. Or to be more precise; many different phases in which all of the pieces of leather are prepared and put together (and sewn). The result is a neat package, ready to be lasted, and they're called the uppers. So closing means 'the making of the uppers', a phase which comes after clicking, a process which we looked at on my last post.

This week, I've had the fortune to spend a lot more time on making those bespoke high heels for Niina. And now it's time to continue the venture:

First up: a lot of skiving.

A closeup on the reason of skiving. Usually a skiving thread is hidden inside. This keeps the folding strong and  stretchless (is that a word? :). This is from the collar.

After folding, I added an reinforcing cloth for added stiffness.

The sewing came out pretty nice. I used size 90/14 needle and size 60/3 thread. The stitch is about 1,1mm long.

A close up on the lining. I was pretty pleased with these :)

The linings upside down and right way down.

Left shoe upper almost done.

A peek at the backside.

A second row of stitching attaches the lining to the upper. This proved to be quite difficult, as you'll see from the picture  below. I wasn't too pleased with the results. And to make things more difficult, with leather you'll get no second chances: if you stitch wrong it'll stay ruined forever. One can take out the falsely sewn thread, but the needle markings are left for everyone to see.

The boot had to be handled forcefully to get some close-to-decent results.

I didn't find a size 60 thread with a proper color, so I reluctantly used size 40.
I could do better with the sewing, too.

The collar down. It's ok.
There's a patent leather detail on the top.

Just waiting for lasting!