First Week Back in The Workshop

Finally, a return to the workshop. Monday the 8th of March had been the day many students could return to their universities for in-person education and, thankfully, my footwear course group was also allowed to come back to work on our projects.

After taking a COVID-19 lateral flow test in the morning and confirming that the result is negative, the regular workshop class was able to begin. On the Monday, I started to settle myself back into the workshop environment that I’ve been missing for over three months. My black boot would finally be worked on once again, with lasting the lining and leather upper, adding the toe puff, and scouring down the bottom to achieve a smooth and neat finish.

Making a boot is an extremely satisfying journey filled with many new challenges and I had never thought that I would ever be at the point of making my own completely unique design. I can remember the early design stages when I was taping up the shoe last, creating formes and patterns for the boot’s components and later on cutting them out of black leather and thinking just how exciting the project is. With the boot itself being almost finished, the making journey has been a very enjoyable one.

Tuesday was a continuation from the previous day’s work and involved operations such as adding the shank, filling in the cavity with scrap leather, adhering randing and a portion of the sole unit to the boot, and cutting out a few lugs which are to be adhered to the sole.

After having Wednesday off, Thursday and Friday essentially consisted of some of the final steps of making the sole unit and connecting it to the boot. Especially on Friday, the work was rather meticulous as I was trying to clean up the sole unit and its lugs with sandpaper and solvent solution and carefully place the sock lining into the inside of the boot. After taking my ‘final’ photos on Friday, I had later realised that I had forgotten to carve into the heel area of the sole unit to give it an angle rather than have it simply straight down. I also forgot to add the horizontal stripe throughout the middle of the sole unit but I can add these features on the upcoming Monday before I start creating my patterns for the two final shoes to be made.

Thank you very much for reading the blog and please feel free to leave any comments and feedback for me to read!