April 2010

I’ve been moving glacially slow on these, but the Wholecuts finally have shanks in place and the bottoms are now filled. It’s completely unnecessary, but I used some larger wooden pegs to hold the ends of the shanks in place. Next step is a visit to the grinder for these shoes.

Here are the lasts for the Blake Stitch Slip-Ons with half insoles in place and a channel cut for some heel seat stitching. I also skived the heel counters yesterday for these (they hate the paparazzi so no photos) and should be ready to last them in the next few days.

Meet my nemesis!

Actually I really like of my post bed sewing machine. It’s a Pfaff 594 and we were brought together by fate.

Back when I started learning shoemaking I was out having some drinks with friends and I started talking about how I needed to find a certain type of sewing machine for making shoe uppers.

The eyes of one of people I was with lit up!

She told me a story about how the company she worked for had had an idea of doing some in-house repair work on the snow board boots that they sold and shipped over a machine from Italy to do so. When the sewing machine arrived, they started it up once, quickly realized that it wouldn’t work for the type of repairs they needed to make, and then left it untouched in her office for something like three years. She really just wanted it out of the corner of her office and told me that they would sell it to me for a very reasonable price and that I should come down to her office and take a look. I honestly thought it must be a patcher, but still worth taking a look to see exactly what it was. When I saw the machine I was shocked. It was exactly what I wanted! I bought the machine and we’ve been together ever since.

It’s a older machine that was in service for many years in a factory in Italy. It now sits in my shop, blissfully in a state of semi-retirement. It still gets to make shoes, but it’s not nearly run as hard as in years gone by. I assume it’s happy, but perhaps it would like to be put to work more?

“Upper” is the term used to describe the top parts of the shoes, and upper making is a skill onto it’s own.

Behind every great shoemaker is a great upper maker, whether that be the shoemaker or someone else. A poorly constructed pair of uppers made into a pair of shoes will still be a poorly made pair of shoes regardless how skilled the shoemaker is at “making,” which is the term used to describe the whole process of turning a shoe upper into a shoe. Upper makers are the under appreciated unsung heros of the beautiful handmade shoes you are holding. Viva la upper makers!

I am not a great upper maker, but there are no upper makers here, so I am forced to make my own.

I finished the uppers for the Blake Stitch Slip-Ons yesterday.

And here’s a side view.

Rands, which are strips of leather the same thickness as the welt, have been attached to the heel areas of the wholecuts using the 5 1/2 – 12 Blau Ring wood pegs.

I also made a small bit of progress yesterday on closing the uppers for the Blake Stitch Slip-Ons and should have them finished later today if I have some time to make it into the shop.

“Closing is the title given to the preparation, fitting together and finishing off of the cut components to produce an upper ready for lasting.” – Manual of Shoemaking, Produced by the training department, Clarks.

I don’t know why I like quoting from Clark’s Manual of Shoemaking, but perhaps it’s because it was writing in the 1970′s. The language is stark, to the point, and more modern compared to the language used in older books on Shoemaking. Here’s an example of an explanation of closing from a book writing around 1930. “Briefly described, the process consists of the holding together, by seams and overlaps, of the pieces cut out by the clicker” – Boots and Shoes, Their Manufacture and Selling, Volume VI, Ball & Rollingson (Golding).

Anyway, here are the sewn together outer and lining pieces for the Blake Stitch Slip-Ons which I “closed” yesterday. Next step is to add the beaded edge and then sew the pieces all together.

“The origin of the word is obscure but the most acceptable explanation is the fact that when a hand cutter’s knife leaves the board on the completion of a cut it makes a distinct clicking noise” – Manual of Shoemaking, Produced by the training department, Clarks.

Clicking is the traditional word for cutting out the pattern pieces of the shoe uppers, and yesterday I was a Clicker. All the pieces are now cut out for the Blake Stitch Slip-Ons and are waiting for me to get back into the shop for some “closing.”