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		Sewing Shoes

Easiest way to sew your shoes is with a sewing machine designed for sewing shoes, However they are not cheep and I suspect you don't have one either. So what I usually do is punch litle holes through the leather, making sure that they line-up between the two peices I'm sewing then sew them by hand. as well as tis method may work, and it does alow my to sew my shoes with a type of flat-felled seam, sometimes the holes are big and dirt or water can get in the shoe. You can sew your shoes with an awl, useing it to cut holes for the tread befor sewing.

How to make your shoes depends so much on what type and style of shoe you want to make. All shoes with a welt joining the top to the sole are built in pretty muche the same way. Though the Mediaeval shoes, espesialy the one peice ones, are made in a very different way.

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		Cutting Shoes

If you are making your shoes of a fabric like a woven textile you should cut it like you would any textile of the kind your're useing.

If useing leather do not cut it with your regular sewing scisors, but use leather scisors. These are sccisors which have one blade ground at a right angle, the anvil blade, and the other blade is ground to a sharp angle, the cutting blade, so it can cut even the thickest leather against the anvil blade. This kind of scicors can cut leather like a hot knife through butter, if they're sharp. Don't try to sharpen these yourself, unless you really know what you're doing.

When cutting out your leather peices your will most likely need a narorrer seam alowence than you do for a textile, as the leather is not going to fray and such.


		© Ragnar Torfason 2006 March 28