Collecting materials at Oregon Leather

I’ve always been fascinated with shoemaking, so I enrolled with Shoemaking Courses Online. It keeps me busy while we’re isolated at home during the Covid lockdowns. Honestly, I’ve never been challenged more by a project. The technical aspects were more manageable than the measuring and pattern making.

It took a lot of trial and error to get through my first pair. At one point, I realized that I had made a few critical errors. I pushed forward through all of the steps so I could “craft fail forward” and learn the techniques.

Cutting materials for the soles
Stiching the tops
Filing down the inside heels
Getting ready to add the cork to the soles
Glue is setting to add another layer to the soles
I stamped my brand name to the bottom of the soles

Realized along the way that shoemaking is much more complex than I was expecting.

Masked off the sides so I could stain the soles
They sort of fit. You can see how the edges are flush to the sides of my foot.
Hmm… the stain bled, so I decided to transform it into a pretty design with sharpies.
Foster dog Farrah supervises the design work

Hurray! I have my first pair of ballet flats! I learned so much along the way. Looking forward to the next lessons in the course.

Glamour shots of the finished shoes
Jenn, aspiring shoemaker