Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

Morgan has been hard at work sorting, cataloguing, and shelving all of the silk thread that I’ll have for sale soon.

I’ll be teaching a leather inlay/overlay class at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina April 20-24. If you’re interested in attending follow this link. The class is Textiles, Spring Session lll.

The headdress boot tops are completed. Now that the slow part is finally done I can start making boots.

I had visitors today and I cleverly “allowed” them to try rubbing the dried glue off of my stitched boot tops. By the time they all tried their hand at it two of them were done. Hurray! That’s two I don’t have to do!

Damar, a friend from California.

Juan, my nephew.

Maria (my niece), Nicole, Damar, Miklo and Juan (nephews) If anyone needs a bunch of giggly teenagers I know where to find some!

I received a letter in the mail today and the way it was addressed made me smile. Just in case anyone at the Post Office is confused about my status in the boot maker hierarchy, he’s made it clear!

I saw this on Paige’s workbench this morning. She’s so talented and I love working with her!

Here’s another tip for creating precise inlay: Lay the leather directly onto the pattern before placing any of the inlay pieces. This way you can be sure you’re positioning them in exactly the right spot.

My client chose this design…

…in these colors.

I’m torn between admiring it and being super annoyed that I didn’t think of it myself. Isn’t it going to be lovely?

The secret to creating flawless inlay is planning the order in which the pieces will be placed.

I’ve chosen to put the flower pieces in last so they can just be a circle, with no worry that they’ll extend into another inlaid shape.

I’ll stitch the design before I rub off the light coat of glue that held my pattern markings in place. It’s a lot easier to rub it off once everything is firmly stitched down. If not, rubbing the glue off pulls the pieces out of place.

I decided to fit up a new last for myself. It really is a brand new last–it’s never been used! It’s an old Western last from 1948.