I haven't been making any shoes for months due to too much work, too hot weather in summer and a general lack of energy and motivation. However, I am trying to continue writing the book, so there will probably be some blog postings as well.
The shoes I made this time are made of silver-colored leather. As leather is thick material, making a neat toe part requires some stretching, so I decided to use polymer clay to make fillers for the toe parts to help them keep their shape.
The leather pieces for the toe parts were easy to cut as only one edge need to be finished at the cutting stage. The rest goes under the insole and will be trimmed during the gluing process.
When gluing the uppers in place, the first parts to glue are the tip and the first flaps on the sides. Then cut flaps in the middle of the sides and glue them in place. These will anchor the uppers in place and the rest of the flaps will be easier to cut and glue.
Here all flaps are glued in place. The most important thing is to ensure there is no overlapping as that will show as bumps in the outer soles.
The heels are pieces of round wooden strips covered with the same leather and enough excess left to reach to the edges of the insoles. Usually there is no need to have this much excess, but these heels were a lot narrower than the width of the sole. The only way to find out the right amount is to try the heels in place, cut a little, try again, cut more if necessary, and repeat as many times as needed.
Here the heels are in place. The seam is a bit higher than I would normally place it, but I had to cover some unevenness in the part where the upper was turned under the insole.
I used leftover pieces of the leather to fill the underside of the insole. This ensures that the outer soles will be even. The leather I used for the outer soles was fairly thin, so any depressions would have shown if I hadn't done this.
The finished shoes have a hole in the strap and a small bead in the opposite part to close the strap.
