Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

I inseamed the pair of boots on the right today; the pair on the left has not been inseamed yet.

I can’t believe I get to make this pair of boots. They’re a reproduction of a vintage pair that I have loved for years.

I was a little slow putting these together because I kept pausing to admire the colors and the effect of the cognac alligator with the chocolate boot tops.

These boot tops are making me happy.

This set of boot tops has been incredibly bossy about how they’re going to be brought into the world.

Completed set of inlaid and stitched boot tops, with pulls

The second photo shows what the inlay looks like from the back, before it’s lined and stitched.

I’ve really been in the mood to cut, skive, and sew boot tops and shoe uppers recently. At some point I’m going to have to begin lasting everything and building boots! In the meantime, here’s the next set of uppers on the work bench.

I finally got these shoe/boots on the last today! I’ve been quietly terrified I’d forgotten how to last shoes, but they were so compliant. Maybe this means I’m also getting better at patterning.

While these will be made on a cowboy boot last, they are shoes and they are patterned like shoes rather than cowboy boots.

I love it when my customers prove me wrong. When this client chose the colors for his boots, I didn’t think it would be bad but I did think it would be somewhat bland and I wished he’d chosen brighter colors. I was mistaken! I love how deep and rich and elegant these colors are together!

If you look closely you’ll see that there are four of the larger pieces stacked on top of each other; the design is cut completely by hand with an X-Acto knife. Same for the pulls on the right; the top one is upside down because one is a mirror image of the other. I can’t do that with the initial pulls because no one wants their initials backwards. When you skive the pieces you cut out and place them back into the work, behind the inlay, that’s called “putting the plugs back in.” It provides definition and it’s not a look I want all the time, but I do on this pair.