The plain black boots are successfully lasted! There was a small hiccup that required me to take the first boot back off the last, turn them wrong-side-out again, take out part of the side seam, and sew it again by hand. Fortunately this all went very well. I did one and showed it to Holly, telling her how good it looked and how relieved I was about it. She said, “Yeah, but can you do it exactly the same way on the second one and make it match?” I gave her my Very Best Dirty Look, because that definitely was the question. (But also, I was proud of her for knowing!)

For the boot makers in my audience: I have decided that from now on I will take triple the side draft on the front panels only. There’s so much excess stretch left in a one-piece front or high vamp style that’s impossible to remove. It opens up at the vamp/counter line because of this, making the Short Heel that you cut so accurately too big and also allowing the side seam to distort back toward the counter. When I took the side seam out I left the back panel as it was and cut an extra 1/4″ on each side for the side draft. That’s a lot! It brought them right back into shape though and accurately fixed the crooked side seam and the too-far drop down the cone.