Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

I have them on the last and they’re starting to look like boots!

It’s the boot shop version of a quilting bee. All of my students were trimming insoles at the same time.

This is my daughter Paige’s personal collection of lasting pliers. I think she’s a little bit spoiled.

I have the vamps and counters sewn onto the boot tops and I’ll be sewing the side seams this afternoon. Soon, instead of random leather pieces, they’ll look like boots!

These are the boot tops for the boots I’ll be making alongside my current student.

Sometime this afternoon between fixing the crimp break, attempting (with no luck at all) to fix the air conditioner that chose NOW to die, working on my YouTube video for Monday, and receiving a huge shipment of leather from England, I managed to cut out some leaves and flowers for my next pair of boots.

My order from Baker Leather in England just arrived and Morgan is preparing to remove all the packaging with her fearsome knife.

I get an email like this every now and then and it always ticks me off. Ray Dorwart is another cowboy boot maker in my town. I certainly don’t view him as a competitor–we’re friends and fellow boot makers. I’m happy he’s in town because we share supplies and leather if we have a need. I have friends and peers in this business but we do NOT compete with each other!