Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

Possible design for a new pair of shoes, submitted to client for approval. Patterning shoes is still really difficult for me but my brain celebrates thinking about patterns and creating patterns and seeing the geometry behind patterns and… everything about making patterns.

The front panels and back panels are ready to be side seamed. Soon it will begin looking like a pair of boots!

Bluebonnets and scissortails take a while to stitch.

This is an excellent example of a graceful inlaid and perforated (the little dots along the edges) cowboy boot top band.

Here’s a little peek at the process of assembling an inlay/overlay design. A design this complex requires much thought about how the pieces will be shaped, which parts will go over and which will go under, and what order they’ll need to be put into place. It’s always fun when you turn it over and see that all the small oddly-shaped bits have come together to create the picture you intended. Stitching will link the floating flowers and leaves, and add the final details to the scissor tail bird.

Soon we’ll find out if all of these oddly-shaped little pieces will come together to make flowers and birds.

I don’t necessarily look forward to punching hundreds of tiny holes by hand one-at-a-time, but I sure love the way it looks along an edge! When you punch holes along an edge in shoe making it’s called Brogueing, but when you punch holes along the edge in cowboy boot making it’s called Perforations.

New design for a pair of boots honoring both Oklahoma (scissortail bird) and Texas (bluebonnets)