Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

Introducing: “Walking the Floor Over You”

A common misconception is that cowboy boot heels are made of wood. They are not; cowboy boot heels are composed of as many layers of sole leather required to achieve the desired heel height. Today I’m stacking heels, which means adding layers and leveling each one before adding the next layer.

Next comes building the heel and then these boots will be finished! The heel is made from pieces of sole leather layered on top of each other, one at a time, leveling each one before adding another, until the correct heel height is achieved.

This pair of boots has been waiting patiently for weeks to be lasted, and they went onto the lasts beautifully.

Inseaming boots always makes me happy. I enjoy doing it, I like knowing it’s done, and (assuming I did a good job) it gives me pleasure to look at it.

My mentor Jay Griffith called this toe shape the Streamlined Square and it’s my very favorite toe. This customer said I could choose the toe shape and that’s an unwise thing to say to me unless you want a Streamlined Square toe.

I visited a friend this evening and saw an old pair of my boots in his collection. I made these for myself a long time ago and eventually gave them to him for display because he’s a boot collector. I’ve only made this design the one time.

I was definitely praying the Boot Maker’s Prayer (Please match, please match!) on these. I lasted them once and wasn’t happy so I took them both off and tried again. The second time was satisfactory and I’m glad because it’s after 5pm and I’m tired and hungry.