Birthday Shoes

It was my Aunty's birthday the weekend Andy and I went to Reykjavik, she loves handmade things so I thought what's better than making her some handmade shoes for her birthday? My aunts style is very relaxed and figured from shoes i've seen her wear I would have to design something that would securely hold her feet into the shoes. So initially I designed a shoe with one ankle strap and in brown suede, from recollection many of her shoes were in this tone (because its a colour that matches her wardrobe) I figured she could probably wear them to work for important meetings if she needed too or for nights out. As always practice makes perfect so I took pictures of the progress as I went along. These are by far my best attempt, there's still lots of room for improvement, mainly making sure I keep the uppers as clean as possible, glue is used in most stages of the process and with some leathers you have a little leeway especially with patent leathers to remove glue if it finds it way on the uppers, however with suede its almost impossible unless left completely alone and removed once dry. (the glue comes off better when it's dry, rubbing the glue off when its wet stains the leather and its impossible to get this stain out) The positives however was that I managed to get the tension right on the stitching for the uppers, the lasting process was faster and overall the whole process was a lot quicker, mostly because each stage felt more natural in progression. Here is a quick video of the whole process!

Court Shoe Process

So a couple of weeks ago I embarked upon my first pair of court shoes WITHOUT help! Going through the process from pattern making to lasting and completing the whole shoe with heels all by myself. If I hadn't been faffing around and brought the right tools in with me to the studio, I think the whole process would have taken me around a day and a half. I came to sections that I was super nervous about especially the stitching since its one of the most noticeable features on a shoe - I took my time and managed to thankfully  achieve a pretty smart finish which I was happy with. I have been assisting the classes for around 6 months now and while I've been able to aid people in the classes at different stages of the process I haven't felt confident enough to be able to go through the whole process without needing help from Toni or Amanda who are the lead teachers in the classes. Within the last month or so it just suddenly clicked into place; I knew what I had to do at every stage - and as the age old saying goes; practice makes perfect. I'm still quite far from my idea of a perfectly made pair of shoes but I'm sure on my way. There is tonnes to improve on, and in retrospect I would have picked a completely different leather as what I had chosen was pretty thick, making seams and folding allowances super bulky, adding to that an even more difficult task of lasting the leather which is never easy. BUT with all this said, I'm glad to have learnt this lesson early - sort of chucking my self in the deep end to start off with which, in turn has taught me more about working with leather. Since I've finished that pair for my mum, I've made sure that I always have a pair of shoes on the go so that I'm constantly brushing up on my skills and making each new pair better than the last! I will not give up until they are perfect!

If you'd like to stay up to date with what I'm up to at the studio you can follow me on snap chat where I take most of my process pictures : kirennmodi