Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

I pulled the last (always a relief to know it’s out with no problems!) and rough-shaped the heels on the vegetable shoes. The customer will have three choices for shoelaces; which one do you think he’ll choose?

I got this pair side seamed yesterday. There are lots of design details to line up at the seams on these!

I side seamed this pair of boots today and I’m pleased with how they’re coming together. 

Soles stitched on the vegetable shoes, but the leather is still too wet to peg them. If you try pegging the soles when the leather is too wet, it’s grippy and hard to drive in the pegs. 

The vegetable shoes have been inseamed and I’m getting ready to lay the soles. 

Boot tops with five rows of stitching and a French calf top band

The vegetable shoes are on the last now!

I started a pair of boots today that will only have stitching on the tops. I consulted one of Jay Griffith’s old catalogs for design inspiration and found this one! I don’t remember ever seeing it before and I’m excited to resurrect it. 

Facing a blank piece of paper gives me anxiety because I don’t know if I’ll be able to fill it with a design, but picking up a pencil and watching a design flow out soothes my heart. I don’t think it’s magic and I don’t think it’s natural talent — I believe it’s years of paying attention and filling my head with beauty, and gradually I become confident and sure when I pick up that pencil. 

I read Tom T. Hall’s book about songwriting; he was working at a radio station where he had a filthy little office and that’s where he wrote songs. He went on vacation one time and they remodeled his office, and it took him months to write again because everything was all wrong. I feel that way about my workbench. I can’t draw unless I have the correct pencil and the poster board I like and I’m sitting at my bench.