Shoemaking Workshop in NY

As I'm sure you've seen, I recently finished my first pair of ladies 18th century shoes.  This was done, in part, through a workshop offered by Brett Walker.  He's currently an apprentice shoemaker at Colonial Williamsburg and has been making shoes for a number of years now.  While my workshop was split over a long period of time, he's planning on doing a ladies shoe workshop in upstate New York later this summer.  I had such a wonderful experience with it, that I very excitedly offered to get the word out about it.  I've posted his description of it below.  If you're interested, have questions about the price or anything else (including accommodations) feel free to contact him at boot_smith (at) hotmail.com .  If you would like a phone number or mailing address to contact him, I can give that out, I just think it's better not to post it publicly!

The site for the shoemaking workshop is being narrowed down, now, to one of two places: 1) Eastfield Village (Don Carpentier's place in East Nassau, NY); or 2) the new Mars Education Center at Fort Ticonderoga.  There will be an eight-hour stitching workshop on the Saturday prior to the full class (20 August) that will be open to the publick.

This part is a prerequisite, of course, to the full shoemaking workshop, and the fee is included in the total class fees for students of the entire class.  However, this day will also be open to the general public as well for a stand-alone $60-per-person fee.  We will cover measuring and making up of threads, attaching bristles, shoemaker's stitch, round-closing, split-and-lift stitches, "subcutaneous" whip-stitches, stabbing stitches, & perhaps some miscellaney like how to make black wax, &c.

Sunday the 21st will be a short recess, and then the shoemaking class will begin in earnest at 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning, 22 August.  The first hour-and-an-half or two hours will be a brief seminar on men's and women's shoe fashions, ca. 1700-1800, in which we'll be attempting to "raise the bar" of the attendee's awareness of stylistic and construction details in the various decades of the 18th-Century.  This will most likely be open to the public for a $35 stand-alone fee, but that has not been confirmed.

At ten o'clock, we will take a brief break, after which those folks who are taking the full six-day class will dive right in to making instruction, wrapping up by five o'clock on Saturday, 27 August.  When the workshop is completed, the students should have at least one shoe finished and perhaps a second one started.