I’m in the middle of completely re-footing this pair of boots that I made in 2002 for a firefighter. These boots feature a one-piece top; instead of a seam up each side of the boot there’s a single seam up the back. It requires a whole different set of patterns and the challenging part is sewing the hard counter (heel piece) into a tube. This is difficult because the counter isn’t sewn flat onto the back panel. Instead, it’s “sprung.” In this case means that the center back point of the counter is forced higher onto the back panel than it would normally sit, which pulls the back panel into a curve. Trying to hold the counter in place while sewing up inside a tube is not a whole lot of fun, but once it’s done the work goes back to Difficult Level instead of Extremely Difficult. (One piece tops are never Easy Level.)