Skip to main content

Basic Turn Shoes

Shoes from the Museum of London's collection.

 Materials:
Paper and pencil for patterning
fabric pencil
1 foot square of thick veggie tan leather for sole- Mine are made of buffalo since I found a scrap to experiment with
1 foot square of thinner leather for shoe upper- I used goat skin
hole punch
mallet
exacto knife and cutting mat
leather needles
waxed thread
pliers

Step 1
First step to any of  project is having your plan, and in the case of  these shoes that is a pattern. My first step was tracing my foot onto a piece of paper and then drawing the shape of my shoe around it. Many of my friends who have tried to make their own shoes had toes that pinched, so my first pair are meant to have a wide toe as is seen on the examples from the Mary Rose. For the vamp and heel pieces I mocked them up with craft felt and paper to ensure I had the right shape.

Step 2
Cut out pieces of shoes. Remember to make mirror of the shoe. Now is a great time to use punches or knives to apply any decorative slashing and punching. Each one of my shoes has 2 rows of small slashes. While wearing them I have learned that the more slashing or punch work you do the looser the vamp will fit. Be careful of overdoing it on a pattern that fit well before you slashed.

Step 3
Use clips to join upper pieces to sole and punch out holds for leather needles to go through. Stitch through shoes using 2 running stitches or a cordwaining stitch. Weave string into stitches. I placed the suede side to be walked on in hopes of better traction, remembering my ballet slippers as a child. Also like those slippers the suede is becoming shiny and slick from wear.

Step 4
Flip your shoe right side out. If leather is stiff, apply a little water with a damp sponge.










And there you have it! I am surprised it took me so long to try this relatively simple process. Go make some shoes and dance!I've had a lot of fun showing these off and now have plans for several other pairs with different bits of slashing or dyes.



Slashed Vamp from 16th century. Currently at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Works consulted
Gardiner, Julie, Before the Mast: Life and Death aboard the Mary Rose, Oxbow Books,  2013.
Grew, Francis and Margrethe de Neergaard, Shoes and Pattens, Museum of London Books; 2001.
Museum of London Image # 002264. 
Metropolitan Museum of Art Accession # 29.158.893
Metropolitan Museum of Art Accession # 29.158.477



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Beginner's Lucet Tutorial

  I got a message recently asking for a tutorial on how to make a basic lucet cord since the only tutorial on my channel so far has been an advanced braid that features working 2 strands. This is the video for you if you are a newbie to using a lucet to make your own lacing for historical garments. Lucet has been used for ties, laces, and applied trim. Typically it is thought that the style might have originated with Norse cultures in the early medieval period. I encourage you to dive into the history of lucet and the different braids you can make with it if you are looking for a quick and compact way to make cord that you can put down and pick up as your time allows. The piece I made for this video took about 2 hours in real time and I did not speed up any of the clips I used to teach the technique, I simply trimmed down the footage. Have you ever used a lucet before? Tell me about your experiences in the comments and your preferred style of lucet fork. Do you like the large U s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Making my Viking Apron Dress

  This Week's vlog is the follow up to my Viking Age Tunic dress which I posted last week. When discussing the clothing of Birka and other Norse cultures, a woolen dress is an iconic look which is functional while tending a fire or many other activities. My apron dress is inspired by the finds out of Birka. The wool I used was a light weight suiting with a 2:2 twill weave. The long seams of this dress were finished with a machine for speed, and all of the seam finishings were hand sewn. I used a woolen finishing technique I learned about while flipping through Woven into the Earth by Else Ostergard. The technique involves using wool yarn and a couching stich of sorts to encase the raw edges of the wool. The end result is a low profile and durable seam around the neck and hem of my apron dress. I love that all of the hand sewn elements of this dress start to create a decorative finish on the outside of the dress and the only extra embellishment I added was a herringbone stitch over...
Post a Comment
Read more

Discover Why Every Maker Needs This Book: Craeft Book Review

  What does it mean to be a maker? What does it mean to be crafty? Where did the word craft come from in the English language? In Craeft, Alexander Langlands deep dives into these topics. Langlands is a Welsh archeologist that many reenactors might know from BBC programs like Tudor Monastery Farm, Tales from the Valley Green, or Victorian Farm. I read this book last year when I was taking some personal time to try and recharge and found it absolutely gets to the heart and soul of why I research and make things. The book also speaks to macro economics in a way that I had not really considered before as a maker of items and how a global disruption of trade can cut people off from goods, leaving them to be craefty like our ancestors to use local items and survive. Ya know, like we were all doing in 2020. This book was published in 2017. Langlands also dives into how our choices as makers can impact the environment around us and how it adapts and changes based on the car we give it a...
Post a Comment
Read more