I’ve made some new shoes!! This is the first pair of shoes made on my new, semi-high-heeled lasts; that I bought … maybe six months ago…? (blush) yes, it’s taken me quite a while to get onto it. Can I just say… Steep. Learning. Curve. That’s all. Making these was quite a different kettle of fish to the fun and relatively easy little flats that I’ve been making up until now. But anyway, they’re done. And I know I’ve said this before, but I may be prouder of these than I’ve ever been of ANY other thing I’ve made before!!
You know the old saying? something about 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration? YEP!! Although this might be more like 99% perspiration…
Several times I almost gave up on these because I thought they were not going to work, and several times I thought I’d almost ruined them. There are several bits that are definitely not perfect, a few scars from where I had, um, …issues… but I’m still pretty happy!
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.
my friend R was cleaning out her wardrobe and gave me some old shoeboxes last week… I’m so glad I could put one to good use almost straight away!
So! the deets…
Materials: the material is a beige-coloured, upholstery suede, from a piece given to me by my friend A after they’d had some benches in their boat re-covered… I’ve used this same fabric to make two pairs of shoes previously… my white oxfords and my laced-at-the-heels shoes. I spray-painted my pieces navy blue, using enamel spray paint (Bunnings) and also spray-painted two small, round-top, white plastic buttons from my stash… the shoes are fully lined with navy blue suedette fabric from Spotlight. For stitching both inside and outside the shoes I used Gutermann’s upholstery thread in navy blue (Spotlight). The layers are glued together with PVA glue, and the heel counters and toe puffs are formed with stretch denim and PVA glue. The soles are rubber sheeting (Bunnings); shanks are metal brackets from Bunnings, hammered to shape; foam insoles are just cut-to-size ones from the supermarket; heels are hand-carved pine (Bunnings) I bought my 5.5cm heeled lasts from etsy store Tatyz
The biggest, albeit hidden difference between these and all the previous shoes I’ve made is the presence of a shank … basically a shank is piece or strip of something hard and inflexible, mostly metal; that provides arch support and helps the shoe maintain its shape. I knew all along I’d have to put a shank in these, because of the defined sole curve… but racked my brains as to WHAT I could actually use. I’d investigated buying purpose-made shanks, but there were two issues… firstly, how could I be sure the ones I was buying would have the right curve to suit my lasts? and secondly and really the biggest one, was that all of the sources I found had minimum orders of, like, 5000. LOL!!!
I guess there’s probably a shoe-making supply store open to the public somewhere where you can actually buy them, but I couldn’t find it. Anyway, in my meanderings through Bunnings looking for likely suspects I found these metal brackets, and thought I’d give them a whirl. As it turned out, I think they’re going to do the job just perfectly!!
the yellow stuff is some thin foam which is just to pad out and level off the sole, offset the thickness of the shank
The brackets are very stiff and strong, and it took some crazy, Thor-like hammering to get them to curve just how I wanted them to, to fit snugly to the bottom of my lasts. So I’m pretty confident they will maintain their shape very nicely, even when I’m wearing the shoes, and subjecting them to the pressures and strain of everyday walking.
I decided upon a hand-carved, wooden heel. Ermahgerd, but these nearly killed me, not to mention my poor shoes… These ones gracing my shoes now are the second set of heels I made. I actually fully carved another set, but when I loosely attached them to the bottom of my shoes to trial them I could instantly see they were too small and looked visually ridiculous to my eyes… SO it was back to Bunnings to hunt for something else… it’s actually pretty hard to find good-sized blocks of wood for sale, that are not planks. The final heels were carved from a pair of furniture “feet”. These are big fat square blocks of wood that you can screw to the bottom of your sofas or whatever… anyway, they were a good size enough for me to carve some nice, blocky heels. I used our belt sander for all the carving.
rejected heels at right. They were carved from a table leg.
The heels are glued to the bottom of the soles (contact adhesive, Bunnings, same stuff I use to glue the sole to the bottom of the shoes) and then nailed through from inside the shoe. I drilled holes from inside the shoe, being very careful to avoid the shank! it would have destroyed the drill bit! Then, I swiped 2mm thick, 3cm long, shiny nails through a blob of PVA glue (in hope of giving them a bit of extra grip) and hammered them into the holes.
there are 9 nails per shoe… should be enough I think! I hope!
I’m making it sound all very straightforward… but this is the bit, yes, the very last step! where I seriously thought I’d destroyed my shoes. My first nail attempt was using a 3mm thick, 5cm long, galvanised nail, which in retrospect was a monstrous nail to choose. IT WOULD NOT HAMMER ALL THE WAY IN. Pulling that thing out did damage the back of that shoe quite a bit, which was pretty heartbreaking, but I certainly wasn’t tossing them in the bin after all I’d been through! Explanation on how I patched it up later…
normally I cover the insole in the same fabric as the lining… in this case I thought the periwinkle/ purple colour of the foam looked quite nice just as it is…
Anyway, once I’d got the monster nail out, I had success with the shorter, sleeker nails. The top edges of the back of one shoe were pretty stretched and dinged up from pulling out the nail, and I just judiciously applied new glue and a bit of new lining fabric to patch up what I could. And I gave both shoes a new coat of navy blue paint… truth was they really did need freshening up, after the months I’d spent working on them, constantly handling them, and tossing them in a drawer in-between times, the initial paint job was already looking a tad shabby. Also, in the process of making them I’d gone off my initial colour choice, thought it was a wee bit drab. So I bought two tubes of acrylic paint (Spotlight) in ultramarine blue and black, and mixed up a shade that was still a deep navy but was a little more vibrant and rich.
Final thing was to mask the heels and apply a quick spray of fixative.
Well, the final final thing of course was to varnish the heels (3 coats of clear satin polyurethane varnish from Bunnings) and to glue a protective layer of rubber to the underneath of the heels.
Ta da!! I’ve no doubt I will be wearing these with immense pride for years…. that is, until I make something better. I’ve learnt so much! On to the next pair!!
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