Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

The big gold dot turned into a planet.

I put these beauties on the lasts yesterday.

Because you can’t blend or fade one color into another with leather inlay/overlay, I decided to attempt a color fade with stitching. The sun is orange and the band next to it is yellow, so I’ve covered the yellow with orange stitching. The band next to the yellow is pink, so I covered the pink with yellow stitching, and so on.

Leather inlay/overlay will never achieve the realism of painting, but it’s fun to push the limits of it and see what’s possible.

Wingtips and countertips for a future project. Wish me luck–so far I have successfully avoided doing a boot with a White or Bone foot.

I have a pair of boots side-seamed and ready to go on the last. I always choose the last before I cut paper, much less leather, but typically I fit the last immediately too. I’m a little behind on that schedule and I’m fitting the last today. Fortunately my Krentler Bros. combination lasts are easy to fit and usually don’t require too much work.

I’m through with all the pattern pieces for “The Little Prince” boot tops and getting ready to put them away. I thought you might enjoy a glimpse of the way I create a pattern, as well as the sweet little cut-out princes that are a by-product of the process.

After an entire week of computer work, I made it back into my studio at 4:40 on Friday and got to work on these tops for a few minutes. As always, I am not pleased with the way they look before they’re stitched and I implore you to reserve judgement until they are. Oh, and the trunk of the baobab tree won’t be added until the boots are being put together so the tree looks weird right now.

I finally decided to wear my new shoes. They’re comfortable, they feel like cowboy boots, and no one else in the whole world has a pair like them. 

One of the most difficult things to do in leather inlay/overlay is faces and achieving a suitable expression is particularly challenging, especially in the smaller ranges. This little prince has a long way to go before he’s done but I’m very pleased with him so far.

The Little Prince boot tops are rough-out–that’s the back side of the leather. The back side of this blue wasn’t as clean and unblemished as I might have wished (one tends to choose leather by the grain side) but I played with placement until I’d either eliminated or covered all the irregularities on both tops. Now I move on to cutting out the design. It can be difficult to see your cutting lines on rough-out because the powder can get lost in the fuzz so I’ve traced around the design with my heat-erasable marker to make it more visible.