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:
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| First up: a lot of skiving. |
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| 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. |
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| After folding, I added an reinforcing cloth for added stiffness. |
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| The sewing came out pretty nice. I used size 90/14 needle and size 60/3 thread. The stitch is about 1,1mm long. |
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| A close up on the lining. I was pretty pleased with these :) |
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| The linings upside down and right way down. |
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| Left shoe upper almost done. |
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| A peek at the backside. |
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| 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. |
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| The boot had to be handled forcefully to get some close-to-decent results. |
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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. |
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The collar down. It's ok.
There's a patent leather detail on the top. |
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| Just waiting for lasting! |
