shoe progress 4

I'm starting on my next pair of shoes, this time a pair of water resistant boots for *aelthwyn. Since she doesn't have a good pair of boots for the rainy northwest climate we live in, I decided to make her a pair of boots next... hopefully to have them done before next winter.

So this is the first steps to the custom shoe process. Once I trace her foot on a paper and take down particular measurements, I take my last (yellow foot form) and layer on leather until I get the size and shape to be correct. On this particular pair of lasts, I also added several layers of leather on top the heel to help with shaping the upper part of the boot. It's unnecessary to go above this and would just get in the way when trying to be removed. However, if I would have left it at it's orriginal lowered position, it would have made indented lines in the leather.

After the shape of the foot is correct, the next step is to make the pattern for the shoe. I start by putting rows of overlapping tape over the shoe, first parallel to the center line (blue line) and then another layer on top of that perpendicular to the center line. Then, using pencil and later permanent marker, I draw on my design and get the shapes into proportion. Some marks are necessary, like the center blue line to divide it equally, other marks, like the purple are just the style lines I've chosen. The yellow lines are just a different color I used to make corrected shapes.

The next step will be to cut and peel the tape off the pattern and then adhere it to paper and begin making the individual pattern pieces.