Monthly Archives: May 2015

In cowboy boot making terms, the leather that wraps around the heel is the counter cover and a decorative piece over the counter cover is a countertip. This is a turquoise ostrich counter cover with a chocolate countertip.

Here’s a link to my YouTube video for May. It’s a Boot Life

I sewed the side seam on this pair of boots this morning and turned them right-side-out. This afternoon I got them on the last and put in the toe boxes. Paige graduates this evening, I have a lot to do, … Continue reading →

Morgan is hard at work making leather strops for me. I provide each student with a strop to use in an inlay/overlay class and when the class is over they beg to keep them. I promised my last class I’d … Continue reading →

Here we have a visual illustration of the importance of stitching. By the way, it takes me about an hour and a half to stitch each panel and there are four of them.

These tops are really complicated and time-consuming to stitch. In their honor I’ve developed a new shop motto for myself: Stop Whining and Do It.

Sometimes I miscalculate when I’m cutting out dozens of small pieces. This poor little flower is the extra, unneeded one.

It’s taken me a while to get all of the pieces cut and skived for this pair of boot tops. Putting them all together was complicated too, but stitching should be the easy part.

I figured out how to test fuses with my voltage meter, changed fuses on my air conditioning unit outside, and it came on! Today is the first day I’ve turned on the air and whenever it won’t come on I’m … Continue reading →