How to make: a summary
For my friend Santiago, I decided the loafer style would be best, and a good time to test the antique grommet machine. The day before, I purchased a bucket of multicolored eyelets from this 80+ year old man who sells industrial sewing machines out of his basement in Akron. His name is Mr. Ed, like the television horse. I've been obsessed with colored grommets since working on Spring & Clifton's Spring 2009 line a few months ago. For some reason, it seems impossible (or at least impossibly expensive) to find more than a few colors of these grommets in the Garment District in NY. Therefore, when Mr. Ed filled up a plastic margarine tub with the tiny metal skittles, I felt as rich as if he'd handed me a pot of gold.
This is the really serious "stitcher" that I learned how to use. It consists of a heavy metal arm that pivots and is bolted to the counter. It's somewhat dangerous, and somehow my dad has managed to stitch his hand on more than one occasion on similar machines over the decades. I got the hang of it rather quickly, but in my own way, which was to turn the power on, but use the hand-crank wheel to move the needle manually stitch-by-stitch. It was faster than it sounds. I'm kind of terrified of this dinosaur though.
This ancient hand tool makes a valley to sew into. I got a set of alphabet leather stamps, and hammered out nerdy stuff onto the soles of everything I made. After the machine stitching, I used thin strips of the electric-blue suede to hand-sew the vamp (top of foot piece) to the body of the shoe through tiny holes I pre-punched with a medieval-looking leather-hole-punch.
Santiago's sporty feet in the finished pair.
No comments:
Post a Comment