I have three women boot/shoe makers in my shop right now. One woman is a shoe maker from France; she brought all her tools and I could tell she knew she was among friends when she opened up the case containing her awls and we all involuntarily gasped and OOOOOHED. My favorite thing I’ve heard so far is when she told us she’d brought the supplies for making hand wax so, “Later, we can have some fun!”

And she is not wrong. We are all super excited about it.