Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

Introducing: “Butterfly Love”

Modeled by the proud maker, Eleni

Eleni’s boots are lasted, the toes are in, and they’re ready to be inseamed. So far we’re on schedule to get them finished before she leaves.

We have two pairs of boots ready to put on the lasts tomorrow!

Eleni has all of her boot top panels stitched and she’s done an absolutely fantastic job. I was most impressed with her ability to understand how to start, stitch an entire design, and come back to the same spot. It’s not intuitive and it’s one of the most difficult things for me to explain because I’ve been doing it for so long I’ve almost lost the ability to put it into words. I told her how to stitch the first butterfly and I had to help her through it. I assumed I’d need to supervise for the rest of the butterflies but once was all it took!

Eleni is stitching her boot tops today, and finding that a good sewing machine can be her friend!
If it appears she’s sitting in the dark with a circle of light at the machine, she is. All of my shop lights decided to burn out the week before she arrived so we’re supplementing with multiple desk lights.

Eleni, a shoe maker from Greece and England, will be in my shop for two weeks. I’m helping her make a pair of cowboy boots and she’s telling me lots of things I don’t know about patterning shoes.

One set of boot tops completed

I still have to stitch inside the flowers with turquoise thread, but I’m not going to do that until I’m through with all of the green stitching. Start in one spot and come back to that place without stopping or tying off, and don’t change thread colors back and forth. Do all of your stitching with one color then change thread colors. These are rules I live by.

Look what just arrived in the mail. A customer sent me this pair of boots (from 2005) for the Boot Scootin’ History exhibition at the Bristol Birthplace of Country Music Museum.