New art piece

Posted on April 9, 2020 by customboots

I made this piece today for my sister, to commemorate the death of our father three years ago today. It’s titled “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”

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My boots get around

Posted on April 9, 2020 by customboots

Arnold Schwarzenegger posted this photo on his Instagram. I’m kind of partial to these boots!

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Whispering Hope

Posted on April 6, 2020 by customboots
Sigh… these are making me happy. I spent all day on these; I wish I’d remembered to take a picture before I added the rain. They were pretty before, and it was scary to sew grey lines all across it, but there was no reason for the gray sky without the rain so I gathered my courage and did it.
This piece is called “Whispering Hope.” I still have to frame them.
Whispering Hope.jpg
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Lea ther Art

Posted on April 2, 2020 by customboots

Sneak peek at the beginnings for my next art pieceIMG_8470.jpg

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Al Bane for Leather

Posted on April 2, 2020 by customboots

If you’re sewing during your time at home, here’s a great page for you to follow. Al has a subscription video series with sewing tips; I just watched one on making a slash pocket. That’s not an easy construction but he comprehensively walked the viewer through how to do it.

Al Bane for Leather

 

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Craft in America

Posted on April 1, 2020 by customboots

If you’d like to watch my presentation at the Craft in America center in Los Angeles, here’s a link.

Craft in America presentation

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Whoops

Posted on April 1, 2020 by customboots

I had to draw a design for a client; he sent me the cowboy photo but I had to come up with the Native American on my own, using searches like “male models from the back” “beefcake from the back” “Native American male models.” I’ve ruined my search history, I’m scarred for life, and I have an entire folder of images of which I am not proud.

Parker.jpg

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Peewees

Posted on March 31, 2020 by customboots

I like playing with vintage designs and changing them, and now I’m in the mood to make myself a new pair of boots. I prefer peewees because: I’m really short. You can get more of them in a suitcase.

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Now I can go home

Posted on March 27, 2020 by customboots

Sewing the vamps and counters (foot part) onto a 17″ tall one-piece boot top with a 12″ heel measurement isn’t exactly a barrel of fun, but it’s done!

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Second time around

Posted on March 24, 2020 by customboots
If you feel as if you’ve seen these boot tops before–you have. The bad news is that I was never able to successfully get the first pair to fit, the good news is that the client is incredibly patient and has allowed me the space to learn so much from this experience. Most boot makers have a patterning system that they’ve learned from their mentor or developed on their own, and once you get a patterning system in place you rarely change it. I had to completely relearn patterning a boot top for this client, which was an amazing opportunity to evaluate why my patterns didn’t work for her and why another pattern system would. Once I got past the stress and the disappointment, I’ve enjoyed figuring this out.
I wasn’t really looking forward to stitching these boot tops again. The boots are 17″ tall and it’s a one-piece boot top, so it’s a large piece of leather and it doesn’t fit easily through the machine. No matter how I fold it, I end up making a turn that jams it into the machine again and prevents me from sewing smoothly. The flowers in the cream-colored top band are the worst because the stitching is concentrated on the top and that leaves me with a mass of leather to move back and forth. To make it easier on this pair, I stitched two rows (Brown and Teal) before I attached the top band to the boot top. Then I glued the top band in place and stitched the final row of Harvest Gold. That’s why from the front there are three visible rows of stitching and from the back side, on the lining, there’s only one row around the leaves and flowers.
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