Leather shoes
These shoes were my pandemic project. I spent months trying and to make a pair of shoes from scratch without a pattern. I spent 6 months on one version only for it to be a complete failure and having to start over from scratch. After another 6 months, I had a completed pair. These were to be the second finished pair of shoes I ever made, the first ones having been made a few years prior with many flaws.
First Shoe Iteration
I was making everything up as I went along with these shoes. I only bought the leather, and not knowing what else to do, hand sewed them with embroidery floss I covered in candle wax. The biggest flaw of these shoes was the wrapping mechanism. They didn’t stay wrapped for very long and constantly had to be retied. The sole was also way too thin and the leather I put on the bottom was too slippery.
Failed Shoe Iteration
For this version, I attempted to pull the leather around my foot to make the toe of the shoe. Then, I cut the tongue to accommodate the top of the foot (then had to sew it back up because I cut it too large) and tried to make a back to the shoe. None of this worked. I ended up with a dumb looking leather slipper. What I didn’t realize was that shoe makers usually stretch the leather over a mold. At least this time I had better tools, and I was able to learn from the experience.
Final Shoe
I figured out a new strategy after the last failure. Instead of using one piece for the bottom of the upper, I decided to create a right angle with two different pieces of leather. This worked a lot better. Remembering the failures of the first shoe, I decided to make a double layered sole and sew the upper in between the two layers for extra security.
Leather-bound book
I made this blank book from a recycled yard sign and leather scraps from a failed shoe experiment. I looked at the construction of old books I had and figured out how to put it together. The inside paper is a map of Washington DC from 1942.
