Nina's

Ladies & Gents! After several months of waiting and about 90 pure handmade working hours; I'm proud to present the newest creation by yours truly! A project for the amazingly beautiful Niina, from the fashion blog Nelliinan vaatehuone.

*Drum roll...*

Nina's

I think I was quite obedient to the original drawing, though some changes did occur. Naturally :)

Taken from her blog (28.2.2012): here.

Taken from her blog (26.10.2012): here.

Materials:

• Collar: Black suede with a black sheep nappa lining
• Bow: Black patent leather ring with black alcantara bows.
• Uppers: Cream white nubuck, Black patent leather.
• Heel: Black patent leather covered plastic heel.
• Sole: Vegetable tanned leather with an black 4mm rubber half sole.

What can I say? Well, I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome, being my first bespoke high heels... I'd say I'm REALLY pleased. There's a million little things that could've gone better, but then again a million little things that I learned. So that's a alot! 

I'll update images of Niina wearing them from her posts later on.
One can only say: Tally hooooo!

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!