Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

I haven’t been working in the shop for the past week because of traveling and teaching. It feels good to be making boots again, and today they should begin to actually look like boots instead of random pieces of leather.

I have a booth at the Oklahoma Chisolm Trail Leather Guild show this weekend, selling my water-based glues and “How to Make Cowboy Boots” DVDs. Today two men came over and assumed that I was simply a worker taking care of the booth. They asked about the DVD and I assured them that it contained all the information needed to make cowboy boots. That’s when they asked me, “So, have you made a pair of boots yet?”

I’m teaching an inlay/overlay class this week, and most of our projects will be bracelets. This is the first one, and my students have joined hands in a bond of bracelet sisterhood.

I put my mother to work for me this past weekend. I have to cut off the tops of the special glue brushes I sell, and she rounded the cut-off edges on the finisher. She said it was fun.

She makes regular doll clothes too.

My mama makes Barbie doll clothes.

I will soon be selling pure silk thread. It’s all in the original boxes and it’s in good condition. I sewed with some this morning and it was a beautiful thing. I still have LOTS of sorting and shelving to do but this is what I’m taking to the Boot and Saddlemakers Roundup this weekend in Wichita Falls, Texas.

You know what I’d really like to own? A nice set of graduated star punches. It’s not easy cutting seven different sizes of stars accurately.

I thought I had them both done, then I realized I’d forgotten to stitch PLURIBUS and UNUM. Once I stopped crying I went over the to the machine and finished them.

This is definitely the most difficult and complex boot top I’ve stitched in recent memory. I’ve got one done and I will be very happy when I can say the other one is stitched too.