Another fun pair, and my apologies for the poor picture quality. These were a bit of an experiment, though you can’t really tell from the fuzzy pic. In this case, I overlapped the vamp on top of the quarters and stitched through the quarters with a tunnel stitch so that the stitching does not show. You can still see a bit of tugging, but I like the look of the overlapped quarters. Additionally, I cut the insole about 1/8″ smaller than the last all the way around in an attempt to draw the welt underneath the shoe a bit more. It worked to a certain extent, but I think I’ll need to go at least to 1/4″ before I see some real undercutting of the welt.
I’ve been pondering this particular project in my brain for some time, and I finally got around to sourcing the right raw materials. This is a pair based off of the painting of Elizabeth I currently located in Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, dated to around 1599. Let me give you the original as well as the finished product and then tell you a little bit about the construction.
Yes, another 1600s shoe, but hey – why quit when you have a good thing going? =) I do try and do new things with every piece, and this one was no exception. In this case, when I visited the Museum of London, I was fortunate enough to be able to look at many of the stored leather pieces that they had in the cabinets. I’m sure I mentioned it in a previous post – anyhow, one of the things that impressed me was the level of detail in so many of the shoes.
In some cases, there were lines of fine tunnel stitching along the surface and opening of the shoe. In fact, this was even visible on many shoes from the wreck of the Mary Rose in 1545, and those guys were sailors! A point of note is that a far majority of shoes had some kind of reinforcement along the opening, either a top band or some kind of stitching like this.
Hi all – this is the first pair that I’ve made using the zig-zag punch of awesome from Brian Brown Armory. I absolutely love the look. It’s very similar to the extant pieces shown there, and are the model for Lesson 9. Note that in so many things, clothing, shoes, arts, etc., smaller is actually more correct. So much of the detail, the pinking, the small notches, the decoration, and the like was done small to show off the artistry of the craftsperson. As re-enactors, there is a tendency to make things larger and more visible, but my experience has taught me that less really is more.
Dedicated to the Research and Construction of Chopines, Pantoufles, Zoccoli, Shoes, Boots,and Other Raised and High Heels.
