Second Pair

With another workshop held at my house this weekend, I've gotten a good start on my second pair of shoes.  I already had the outer soles ready and one of the uppers finished.

I covered the last and outer sole with paper, then lasted and tacked on the upper. We added in re-inforcement pieces to the toe area, unlike last time.  You can see the small marks of the stitches.  It's inserted between the leather and fabric, but only stitched to the leather.  All of that took most of day one.

A combination of a better sole leather, larger awl blade, smaller awl haft, and using 7-strand thread instead of 9 made this seaming go much faster and look much better than my first pair.  I still need to work on strengthening my grip in my left hand.  I think this inseaming took about 2 hours (someday, maybe it'll be 30 minutes; that would be glorious).

I also started carving down the heel to be the proper shape.  It's lost some length since this point.

With the stitching done, we removed the last from the uppers and started carving out the insole.  I still need to put a hold-fast in the heel area.

The upper was turned (not easy!), then I skived down the remaining flap of the outer sole so it would curve into the heel nicely.  I still need to finish binding the second upper before I can start on that shoe (it's such a pretty blue wool).  I have today off to recover then it's back to work on it tomorrow.  I'm hoping to have this pair done by mid-February.

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.

Cordwaining Part 2

I had the third part of my shoe workshop with Brett Walker this weekend.  I now have pieces that bear resemblance to shoes!  My first step, after a few small finishing touches to the instep leather, was to make a paper pattern.  From that I cut out a mock-up from cheap leather and quickly lasted it.  You can see the general silhouette and now I'm sure that I don't have shapes that won't stretch to fit later.

This is an example of one of Brett's mock-up shoes.  The heel is very much like the one that I'll have.

Then we bravely cut out the fabric and whittaw leather, pasting them together and leaving them to dry overnight.  We then whipped up the back seam using silk thread, and then attached the quarters to the vamp.  I can honestly say this part is the easiest for me of the whole process so far!

I then bound all the edges with dyed silk grosgrain.

The next step we touched upon was for the sole.  This is going to be made as a turn shoe, meaning we put it together inside-out and then turn it before adding the heel and insole.  The sole leather was too thick for a turn shoe, so we took a great deal of flesh off.  There's no shape around the heel since that will actually attach down the front of the wooden heel piece.  The line will have carving done around the edge up to it to create a drop off point where the stitches will go through when attaching the uppers.

I still need to put the second upper together, flesh the second sole, and assemble my leather apron (which apparently came from the largest mutant sheep we've ever seen.  I think the leather company lied...).  Then it'll be on to assembly!!

Coming Soon.....

Hello again!  I am finally managing to get out from under the process of moving and back to the clothing.  Unfortunately I don't have much to post today, but things will be coming soon.  I'm finishing the trim on my Caraco, still working on a Robe a l'Anglaise, looking for buttons for my 1790s jacket, and should get to a pet-en-l'air by Christmas.  I'm also attending two workshops this month:  1780s gowns in two weeks and stays the week after.  I'll make sure to take lots of notes and pictures and try to get up some comprehensive information and instructions soon after.  

On a side note, I did get to attend a lecture by Caroline Weber on her book "Queen of Fashion".  Slap me on the wrist, but I haven't read it yet.  I promise I will soon!  I was impressed to find that she has origins in French history and self-taught the fashion history just for this book.  Listening to her rattle off French terms made me very glad to have minored in it!  Some of the most interesting information she discussed were the Poufs.  That oddly wonderful three foot tall hairstyle which acted as a 18th century billboard.  Now, I've seen images of women with ships on their poufs, but that was only the beginning!  Those were termed "Poufs de Circumstance" having to do with current events or politics.  On the other side are your "Poufs de Sentimente".  This could be A la Trouche, with ostrich feathers, or even A la jardinier, with vegetables!  She mentioned one headdress made of a cabbage surrounded by root vegetables.  I can't imagine the weight of that!

There was much more discussed on Marie Antoinette's phase with wearing men's riding wear, the infamous portrait in the gauze gown, the colors of the revolution, her fashion designer Rose Bertin, and her final days in jail.  I was told, if you speak French, to check out the book "La Modiste de la Reine".  Now, if I can just find it.