A pair of shoes for Edmund, very similar to Lesson 7: Mid 16th C. Shoes (Stacked Leather). I also pegged these shoes, although upon further reading, I do believe that rectangular pegs only started coming around in the late 17th. Perhaps the next time, I’ll experiment with a different type of peg. From what I have read on the Crispin Colloquy, they were typically oblong or oval shaped, probably from whittling away thin strips of wood.
Also note that in these shoes, I’ve made the lining much fuller so it can be partially pulled through the slits in the upper. I’ll be curious to know how well it stays!
I just posted a new tutorial on Pegging a Heel. Since I’d just finished pegging a heel lift and was so enthused by the process, I thought I’d make this write-up, as pegging is a rather critical process by which many heel lifts were assembled.
When you attach a welt to a shoe, you necessarily must then attach an outsole to the welt. Normally, this outsole is a little larger than it actually needs to be, so it needs to be trimmed off – at some point. I have always been trimming the outsole and the welt at the same time, after it has been sewn on, as shown below:
There certainly is a certain logic in trimming the outsole after you have tacked it onto the welted shoe (but before you have sewn it to the welt) – it allows you to get a perfect fit to the lasted shoe, and when you are cutting your stitching groove, there will always be perfect alignment to it. I have always cut my grove prior to tacking on the outsole, so there is always a bit of “jinking” with the outsole to make sure the groove is set up properly, but it makes a lot of sense to trim the outsole first, and then cut your groove. In fact, Garsault also calls for this exact technique.
In retrospect, I believe the reason that I adopted the method of cutting the stitching groove first is that I had never been soaking the outsole prior to stitching, which made my life immeasurably more difficult! That washtub of water sitting next to all of those shoemakers in the illustrations is not mere decoration – it’s used ALL the time! =)
I just posted a new tutorial on a Making a Waxed End. Although there are a few sites out there that talk about how to make waxed ends, I thought I’d give my take on it, since it is a rather important skill in crafting raised heels.
Dedicated to the Research and Construction of Chopines, Pantoufles, Zoccoli, Shoes, Boots,and Other Raised and High Heels.
