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.
A pair of shoes for Bess, again, very similar to Lesson 7: Mid 16th C. Shoes (Stacked Leather). These have pickadils all the way around instead of just on the vamp, and I tried a new technique where I didn’t leave any space between them. I really like the way they look, and will be doing all of my pickadils like this in the future.
In other news, and I apologize for being so quiet on the topic, I returned from Williamsburg about a month ago after attending a symposium on Costume accessories. It was a wonderful experience, and I was even able to get some time to pick some of the minds of the very talented cordwainers at Williamsburg. A few of the highlights that I came away with (so as not to give away all of the secrets!), and I will be adding more as I go through my notes:
