Heels!
I’ve made some high heeled wedges, specifically designed in colour, shape and height of heel to go with my newest Alabama Chanin outfit. Hurrah! I know, right? we can all breathe a sigh of relief now. I’m sure everyone else, just like me, has been lying awake at night, tossing and turning, losing sleep over the thought that I didn’t have any shoes that went with that Alabama Chanin ensemble. Nail biting stoof.
No? Just me then? wink wink
I didn’t have any fabric or leather in a colour that went well with my outfit; until…! While browsing through Spotlight one day, I spotted a pack of so-called premium leather remnants, the “leather” side is black but the “suede” side was a rather beautiful shade of deep oceanic teal. I thought it went very nicely with the blue/green shades of my newest onn-sohhm-ble (said in an ott Frawnch accent). So I bought a bag.
Well.
What was I thinking? All I can say is this; under no circumstances ever buy those “premium” leather remnants in a bag. Unless you really wish to pay $12 for a raggedy scramble of what is essentially awkwardly shaped, screwed-up scraps, typically around 4x15cm in size, barely big enough to make babies’ shoes, even. And if you’re making shoes for an adult human? nope! Premium?! LOL! I would LOVE to see the not-so premium stuff!! It must be heeeeeeeeinous!!! Because; not to harp on, but this stuff is crap. However. I steeled myself to it, determined to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Or, a polyester satin purse, at least. I was determined to NOT waste this leather and make the best of it that I absolutely could… but I do have to admit that these shoes are not my finest hour. This was the absolute best I could do!
Some of my most successful shoes have been my denim shoes; that are a hand carved balsa wood base covered with fabric. I decided to repeat that procedure for a pair of high wedges.. and so I hand carved a pair of soles. These turned out fine, all well and good.
balsa bases at right; at left is another future pair of pine clogs
Covering the bases, I used the absolute biggest pieces of scrap leather I could glean from my bag of paltry clippings… the colour wasn’t perfectly even throughout, some pieces were a deep deep oceanic blue, while some pieces were more of a faded, smoky grey/blue. I’m not against colour variatio, not at all! but they certainly make for more of a challenge. And when you’re piecing together pieces to cover a shoe base, it just doesn’t look so good to abut different shades around the shoe. You can see below; the liner of the right shoe is two pieces of very different colours, joining just front of the heel. I figured that wasn’t a bad spot for a join, because it couldn’t really be seen when I’m wearing it, underneath my foot there.
For the uppers; there are eight strips of leather per shoe, sewn at each end to a piece of sturdy cotton denim that is glued underneath the suede liner piece.
The eight strips form “arches”, which had to be tight enough to sit snugly over my instep, whilst at the same time still allowing the frontmost, widest part of my foot to fit through all the arches while I’m putting them on. This took some fiddling to nut out… also, the straps are essentially woven together across each other and so there are some straps that are key to the design, the middle one across my toes, the two long diagonal ones and one of the highest instep straps. These four provide the stable backbone for the others to be woven into and are essentially holding everything all in place. I then added the others more randomly, arranging and weaving them through decoratively, but they do also add strength.
Now, I say “random”; I’m all for random, but I’ve found that true randomness is more visually pleasing when there is some element of order and method in there somewhere. I like the fact that the strips appear to be a disordered riot of criss-crossing strips; however the shoes are actually exact mirror images of each other with the strips set in exactly the same places to each other. But when I put them on I do have to “arrange” them all! Underneath the shoes, I’ve glued pieces of thick, tough black rubber, so the shoes can stand up to the rigours of life on da streetz.
So, yay! new shoes! They are just the right height to go nicely and unobtrusively underneath my new Alabama Chanin skirts, keeping them up and out of the dirt. I think the skinny straps look quite nice against the design of my outfit; matching but not too derivative, in a harmonious colour; and a design quietly complementary while not stealing the show away from my embroidery! Bam! I’m happy 🙂 well, reasonably so anyway! And they will do absolutely fine, at least until my Year of Handmade is up and I can return with some joy to the undoubtedly more attractive rtw shoes in my collection!
These shoes are GORGEOUS! In addition the given facts of working with scraps! I think that they are complementaring the Alabama Chanin Skirts wonderfully!
Beautiful work! I really love the skinny straps 🙂
My thoughts were that you’ve made a gorgeous pair of shoes too! Shocked to find that they were built upon the scrappiest of scrappy leather pieces that were totally unplanned until the package was opened and your creative spirit went into high gear. You’ve done fantastic! Seriously a great looking pair of shoes and a perfect complement to your oh-so-gorgeous Alabama Chanin ensemble. Not sure a rtw could really beat this one. 🙂
Stop it! I’m kidding, every time I click to read your latest blog post you amaze me even more than the last time. Beautiful shoes.
What a bootiful ‘on-sam-bluh’!! 😉
1) It’s never a bad time to show the Chanin skirts again.
2) Carving shoe soles from pine now? Some of us are pretty happy when we can fix the thread tension on our sewing machines.
3) Don’t think we didn’t notice your coordinating nail polish.
4) Nice wedge sandals.
You keep us on our toes.
Happy Mother’s Day.
thank you so much Sankati! yep the toenail polish was totally planned, may even have been selected especially just for these photos…. 😉
You’ll never believe – I woke up today thinking, geez, I gotta make some flatforms like Carolyn does.
Your shoes are AMAZING, again! I love the criss-crossing web you made from the crap leather scraps. Good thinking. And I swear, anything you put on your feet with the Chanin onn-sohhm-ble (heh) would look good, but these shoes look good all on their own. Keep dazzling me. I love it!!
These shoes look amazing! I love them and they so complete your outfit. I have all the Alabama books and spend my spare time procrastinating/drooling over the designs. Your outfit is truly gorgeous and you have taken handmade to the next level with all your shoes. I was excited when I managed to sew jeans and now lingerie which I have an addiction for but shoes I would have thought unattainable but you’ve shown us this isn’t so – you are an inspiration
“I have all the Alabama books and spend my spare time procrastinating/drooling over the designs.”
Are we related????
And to your point: Carolyn’s inexhaustible idea file is the inspiration that draws us here, isn’t it.
No wonder you are happy. These are wonderful and complete your AC outfit! Just beautiful!
How do you keep making such great things? These are great, and from such poor raw materials too. Well done.
These are gorgeous! Love the woven strap design!
Epic handmade outfit! Way to have fun with making shoes.
Wowsa! No one would know these were made with scraps, let alone handcrafted by someone not professionally trained. Love the whole outfit!
Amazing that you’re able to make your own shoes, that’s taking Me Made May to a whole new level.
Beautiful colour and so well made. Love the randomness it makes them very unique.
Puh, I’m glad you finally habe a matching pair of shoes to your outfit! 😀 Let me say that those look super professional and no one will ever guess you went into troubles with the leather!
I love those strappy shoes! Very cute!
I really like them and they are definitely worth anther go if you see these as a trial. What a shame about the materials, I hate it when that happens. Jo x
they are brilliant and look amazing with the skirt. I was dithering over what to try with a tie dye dress and the denim strapping looks so comfortable (I have some ‘mohops’) I was going to try and crochet some straps but will have a go at some denim bits now – fine job as always
Oh these are lovely and they go so well with your Alabama Chanin ensemble in both colour and style.
What a wag you are. Creative and courageous. Your blurb makes an amusing and delightful commentary for your pics. Great project. Keep on! Enjoying your progress and pioneering spirit for the YOH. Go grrrrl!
They go so well with your skirt. You did brilliantly to get your scraps into such great shape. Whatever are you going to do to top this?
you’re awesome! your shoes are very beautiful.
very beautiful and creative heels!
http://www.seattlesearchengineoptimization.net
it’s nice and awesome!
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I really enjoy your blog, and I thought that you might enjoy these slightly out-there shoes. Several American bloggers wear them (RTW) in their posts, and since you often wear avant garde clothing, I thought that they might inspire you in your cobbling efforts. Certainly your sewing has inspired me, so I hope that this returns the favor in a tiny way:
http://santafedrygoods.com/shoes/
those are really cool! I have come cross Trippens before and absolutely love them. A very inspiring range… thanks for the link! 🙂
Love them! They go great with the outfit.