Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

Introducing “Some Days are Diamonds”

It’s always a good feeling to reach this stage. I’ll let them sit over the weekend and then send them to their new owners.

It was another hard labor but the second pair of lasts have been safely delivered and I’m going home. Shaping the heels will be easy tomorrow because the boots weigh half as much with no lasts inside!

Am I posting this picture (gasp, wheeze) to show my progress on this pair, or is posting an update (puff, pant) just a good excuse to take a break after wrestling the lasts out? 🥴

Throwback to the time I built a pair of boots for a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Please note the red, white, and blue top beading.

Picture quality isn’t that great because I am old and these were taken with film, and this is a scan of a photo.

I’ve been having fun designing for shoe quarters. Cowboy boot tops have a very specific shape, and I’ve designed for cowboy boots for so long that I thought of it as a language–the only language I was capable of comprehending or speaking. It’s been interesting to challenge myself with a new shape and a new vocabulary.

It was hard to decide if I should start on the Louvin Brothers shoes or the RBG shoes first, but I decided to delay gratification on the Louvin Brothers shoes just in case I have some more mistakes to learn the hard way. Bo brought me a Virgil’s root beer and a bag of candy; for my next apprentice I’m requesting one who will bring me salads and sniff disapprovingly when I consume sugar.

“Inseaming” is sewing the welt to the boot through the insole. The sand-colored ostrich boots are both inseamed, one of the alligator boots is inseamed, the final alligator boot is waiting to be inseamed, and the waxed inseaming threads are laying across the boot toe.

At some point I need to stop making shoe uppers and actually make the shoes. But it doesn’t matter right now because I’m feeling better, so playtime is over and it’s time to go back to work on cowboy boots.