Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

I put these red boots on the lasts this morning.

Today I’m happy for side seams that are done, and side seams that match.

Usually I match the side welt (the leather strip going down the side of the boot) to the vamp leather. If I can’t match the vamp leather exactly I go the opposite way and match the boot top leather. I prefer a deliberate contrast to an almost-match.

The inside of the boots will be pretty too.

I finished another pair of boot tops today and now I can begin putting boots together. The pulls aren’t finished because I just glued them to the lining a few minutes ago. The fastest way to make your machine grumpy is to try sewing through wet glue.

Sigh… this one lonely boot panel represents everything I got done in the boot shop today.

I promised yesterday that these boot tops would look better after they were stitched, and here’s proof. All of the sewing is done on my vintage, non-computerized Singer sewing machine with a clutch motor.

The boot tops are together and now I need to stitch them to add all of the detail that will make them interesting.