My friend and fellow boot maker Valerie Coe came out to Oklahoma and we made her a pair of shoes! In the photo where she’s wearing the shoes, if you look closely, you can see that she tried them on (to make sure they fit!) before we finished the sole edges and heels.
I think I forgot to post photos of the Louvin Brothers shoes after I finished them! All work is done with leather inlay, overlay, and stitching — there’s no painting.
This is the art piece I’ve had in my head for months; it feels good to get it out. It will be one of the most complex projects I’ve tried so I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes. I have some busy days ahead and it will be weeks before I get to work on it again.
The whole time I was making the Fender tweed shoes, I was keeping a secret: I put the new owner’s name on the outside of the left shoe. I wanted to surprise him which meant I couldn’t post pictures that revealed the name. I tried to do the letters in the same font as the Fender logo but given that the words “Dallas Wayne” and “Fender” only share two letters (not counting the letter D because I needed to capitalize it), so I had to make up most of it.
A few weeks ago I made a bracelet with mountains and sky, just for fun, just because I was inspired to do it. A week ago I got to visit West Virginia again and see my best friend from seventh grade. She drove me all around Pocahontas County and we reminisced about the good times, and as I sat on the porch of her cabin looking out over the mountains, I realized why I’d made that bracelet and who it was for.
I spent Sunday afternoon with Satan; I’m trying to finish my shoes before I see The Malpass Brothers in concert on Sunday. (Taylor Malpass owns the “Satan Is Real” cowboy boots — they’re fellow Louvin Brothers fans.) Today I finished the sole edges, finished the soles, and laid the first heel layer (if one’s going to try to not stick, it’ll be that one, so I like to get it done). Since it’s rarely ever efficient to work on one pair at a time, the Fender tweed shoes came along for the ride. Now all I need to do for both pairs is finish building the heels and they’ll be done!