Shoe Making: Men's Practise Derby V1

After getting home from my Carreducker's pattern making workshop I decided to put the whole system to work ASAP.

I have an old pair of lasts that I have modified to fit me and so started from page one of the course book that Jesse made for us.

The initial drape form required a "spring" in the joint area and the tracing paper worked very well.

The full set of forme, master, outer, and lining patterns. It is a lot to take in and the book indispensable, having been trained as a Auto Body draftsman from back in the "board days" it was so much fun (and a little strange) to get back to drafting.
FYI, there are two types of drafting: one where the picture of the object is mostly reference and the dimensions are the absolute part of the draft (Machine drafting,) the other is Body drafting where the line is the absolute and there are very few dimensions. Pattern drafting for shoes is of the later; there are small critical modifications, and the smooth, beautiful, and sensuous curves you are drawing will be what you end up making.

In preparation for the next day I put the over-sized mid-soles on and wrapped them for over night forming.

Closed linings I used the "round the heel" style lap seam to offset that stitching from the outer heel stitching. I like to use a ZZ stitch for the sides; allows for stretch during lasting. And I mistakenly stitched down the little tabs at the front of the facings; I had no idea hoe it was to fit together at that moment.

I decided to go with a hem all around certainly good practice but not worth it on a V1 practice piece. I put my top line tape in this pattern as an experiment, the jury is still out.

Closed outer ready to be combined with lining. The order of assembly is tricky and so I tried it both ways; sew the heel 1st and then along the sides of the vamp, vs sew each quarter to the vamp and sew the heel last. I think sew the heel last is the way to go.

1st form over night form lasting, my tendency is to treat this lasting too seriously; it's really about getting the leather to know where its headed and not about any finish perfection. Using the air stapler at this phase it is important to stay away form the edges where you will want to have good clean edges for the final lasting tomorrow.

Final lasting allows for a nice row of staples near the feather edge.

Fully stitched around the edges, I had a hiccup with the 77 stitcher and had to get the book out to reset the needle height. Unlike most machines the needle height is completely adjustable and so can get pushed out of position.

Summary:
These things are a disaster and will go straight into the garbage as soon as I have completed V2 (already in progress) and have learned all I can from them.

I did learn a lot from this exercise and V2 are looking much better.