Lisa Sorrell, cowboy boot maker

I’m starting to build heels today, one… layer… at… a… time.

It is such a wonderful feeling to have two pairs of soles on the boots and stitched. Boot making usually goes quickly now.

These two pairs have had the steel shank laced to the boot. Tomorrow, shank covers and then soles.

Today was a good day for inseaming. The welt is sewn on by hand and after the sole is put on, none of my hard work will be visible.

Once in a while I make something for myself. I’ll be going to England soon so I made myself a passport holder for the airport. It has a pocket in the front for a credit card and a pocket on the back for my phone.

Today has been about toes. I took my time and did a good job, because a pair of boots look nicer if the toes match. 🙂

I’ll be making a pair of boots soon that feature colored, carved dog portraits inlaid into the boot tops. The entire time the client and I have been discussing these boots, I have been completely unable to visualize how the portraits would be framed in the boot top and what sort of stitched design I could use to fill the empty space. I decided to just wait and not worry about it until I actually received the dog carvings, and then see if an idea would appear. It did!

The leather carvings are by Kathy Flanagan.

Old Scratch decided to show up for these boots too. Ostrich does like to twist, and it took me four tries to last the second boot. We finally called a draw; I didn’t quite get it where I wanted it, but the boot certainly doesn’t sit on the last where it wanted to either.