This past weekend I had great fun doing a shoe-making workshop with the lovely Lisa, of The Shoe Camaraderie! This is a bucket list item I’ve obviously been wanting to do for aaaaaaaaages, so when I saw on instagram that Lisa was planning to come here and run some day-long workshops to make a pair of sandals, I jumped immediately! And here they are! I chose to make a simple slide, the strap around the back of my ankle was my own idea, partially because I just wanted it, and partially also I wanted to add my own little spin to the design, and Lisa graciously accommodated my request.
These are obviously the most professional looking and beautifully finished shoes I have ever made; benefitting from the help and supervision of a professional. Not to mention learning what are the right tools and supplies I need, and how to use them safely. I’m super keen now to get my hot little hands on the proper tools and glue I need to get, so I can make more of my own shoes in the future. I’m hooked!
Lisa was a wonderful teacher; generous with her time and expertise and super helpful to everyone in our small class. There were six of us; and we all managed to complete our different shoes. Lisa devoted time to everyone individually, as well as frequently teaching relevant information to the whole class; and stepped in to help anyone with bits they found too tricky or difficult, in order to ensure we all went home with a perfect pair of shoes. Funnily enough, everyone’s shoes were quite unique! Not one of us had an identical pair to anyone else. Which is exactly what you want, yeah?
I chose ivory leather… I was dithering whether to go for this or caramel, because you know, white shows the dirt. But in the end decided to just go for the one I wanted. After all, you can always buff and re-polish!
Below, applying glue to the soles and heels. I need to get me some of this glue!!! It’s a special shoe glue by Foss. At right, my straps are lined with thin pig hide.
These dash-holes were made with a special punch. I couldn’t get over how cute they are! I forgot to take picture, but I also learnt how to skive… a very useful skill if I’m going to do any more leatherwork! 
I’m so pleased with how the black buckles look with my white leather! It picks up the black layer on the bottom of the heel so nicely. The little curved “V” on the end of the strap in the lower picture was made with another purpose-shaped punch.
Forgot to take pictures… again! But we spent some time fitting the tops specially to our feet, and then getting the second slide to look exactly the same!
Temporarily glued the skived straps in, then punched some holes and stitched them on. It’s funny, but this simple stitch on the sandal is so charming to my eyes! and adds the perfect amount of “handmade” look to them.
This stuff below is AMAAAAZING! It’s “rand”. You’d think there was hours and hours of hand-stitching the uppers to the sole, but this stuff is simply glued in and it all looks absolutely perfect. Cheating? Maybe just a little bit, but doesn’t it looks lovely when it’s in!
Lisa showed us how to apply the rand with little bit of a downward slope around the heel and toe curves, top and bottom, which keeps the shoe and sole nicely tight once they’re glued together.
And finished!!!
The thread you use for all stitching is heavily waxed, and all the knots on the inside are melted using a lighter, then stamped down flat, so a) they’ll never come undone and b) so they won’t poke into and irritate your foot while you’re wearing the shoes. Clever!
Lisa very kindly and generously did the final bit of sanding of everyone’s heels, which allowed us all time to relax and chat with wine, cheese and chocolate. I know, right?!!!
You’re not supposed to wear newly finished shoes for at least 24 hours after completing, to let the glue dry. You’ll be pleased to know that 24 hours had just passed when I gingerly donned the sandals for these pictures, and then immediately afterwards very carefully took them off again and put them back in their special bag. And I might even have (ahem) especially shaved ye olde legs and applied nail varnish for the occasion. Well… it’s winter!
I know I’m going to enjoy wearing my new sandals so much! And I’m looking forward to when Lisa next comes over for another round of workshops…. I’m totally planning to sign up again!
Details:
I discovered this pattern for little sockettes that you wear with ballerina flats; 
Confession time: I actually started recording YouTube videos to document the process of making these shoes, and basically gave up on that halfway because I truly lost heart a few times and felt like my shoes were never going to happen. Likewise, I didn’t take many actual photos during the making of them either! the ones in this post here are basically all of them… But I’m so glad I persisted in the end (minus the stress of filming myself) and have finally limped in to the finish line. I’ll make another YouTube video, some other time, on some other shoes.
Hello! I’ve finally finished these black leather clogs; that have been on the go for nearly a whole year now…. eeeeek!!
The last time I went down to visit Mum and Dad: Dad had some pinewood he’d cut himself from a “weed” pine on their block… and he very kindly helped me to shape the blocks on his bandsaw, and have the use of his sander to do some further shaping while I was down there… I’m so lucky that Dad has all the perfect equipment for this!
Once I got home, I sanded down the soles even further, stuck some cork to the bottom and the heels, and applied five coats of satin varnish. Ohhh, wait, getting ahead of myself… before that, I’d fancied the idea of a nice deep, chocolate brown wood, I thought it would play off nicely against my chosen black leather. So I bought some walnut stain and gave them a coat. They looked um, not good, but I persisted (“maybe they just need MORE of it” famous last words) and did a few more coats. Then they looked DREADFUL. A day or so of deep depression later, and I’d regained the energy to set up the sander again and sand it all off. THEN I did the soling/ varnishing thing to my clean, new soles. *sigh* Lesson learned; wood looks better in its natural colour.
The bottom layer is thin cork-covered, contact paper, cut to size, stuck on – more liquid nails, yo!! and then three layers of clear, enamel varnish to seal and strengthen.
Uppers: this particular vinyl has that very rubbery texture which sticks to the presser foot, leading to horribly uneven stitches. I usually use a strip of tissue paper to facilitate the vinyl going evenly through the machine; but these strips are really really skinny, wonky stitching would stand out a mile and I wanted to get the topstitching perfectly even in appearance, and you can’t see through tissue paper so it just wasn’t going to cut it this time. I found though, that by turning the vinyl upside down it all worked out quite smooth and fairly easy to sew.
A bit of faffing about with strips and I finally settled upon a nice simple, multi-strapped design, cut a denim “inner sole” piece and zigzagged all the strips to this underneath the echo-panel layer, to anchor them securely into position inside the sandal. This denim inner sole is sandwiched between, and securely glued to the echo-panel above and the cork sole below. So it’s not visible in the final sandal, also, none of those strips is in danger of pulling out!
I toyed with the idea of leaving the echo-panel showing on the edge, but its woolliness actually picks up every stray hair and twig, and the white shows like every smudge, and I decided a smooth, dark edge would be less of a headache. More sensible, hides the dirt, you know. I cut and glued on a nice evenly cut strip of dark denim to the outside edge, pinning in a few strategic places where the denim didn’t instantly stick to the inner curves of the sole. Those pins can just be seen in the picture below; I sort of thought they would be a temporary measure until the glue dried, however they got pretty firmly glued in themselves and proved impossible to get out! so I’ve left them in there. After this picture was taken I went back and touched them all up with a dob of black paint so now they’re invisible. And, then they were further sealed in with several coats of varnish over the denim, so they’re pretty secure. I don’t think I have to worry that they’ll ever come out 🙂
The soles are cut from rubber sheeting, from Bunnings. I made my own stacked heels, as usual, glued them all together with contact adhesive, and sanded them all off nice and smooth before giving them a blacking, and finally a coat of satin varnish. On some of my shoes I’ve started to varnish underneath the soles too, like I saw 
