Craig Corvin Seattle

Bespoke Footwear / Handmade Custom Shoes

Some images of the preparation of the insoles for the Gibsons

Plastic bowl from Ikea, in case you were curious about what I use for soaking leather.

Making sure the nail is mostly centered, mostly.

Wrapping insoles onto the lasts with cheap elastic bandages still looks absolutely ridiculous to me, but it really does a great job of forming them. The pros outweigh the cons, but I’m open to other opinions.

While not as drastic as the Galosh Oxfords, the pair of Gibsons will also have some built-in arch support, which is why I’m wrapping them.

And yes, that’s sunlight… In Seattle! Finally we’re having some nice weather for a change.

The test fitters for the Chukka boots are finished. Hopefully I can schedule a fitting this week and see what alterations to the lasts are needed.

The lasts for the Gibsons have been altered and are ready for insoles, but I still need to make some changes to the pattern and construct the uppers as well.

I escaped from the web development grind for a few minutes today to last one of chukka boot test fitter uppers.

Even when working with a rough upper, there’s something very satisfying about seeing it on the last.

Ok, back to the computer work… Must keep clients happy and bills paid.

Uppers for a pair of test fitters.

Trying to find the time this week to last these…

A pattern piece for a pair of test fitters I’m working on.

April was a busy month for me, full of web development work and server migrations. Hopefully May will be more about shoemaking and less about cPanel and Plesk.

And the results of the test fitting for the Gibsons:

Lasts are 95% there. A little build up addition on the right last around the little toe, and a slight bit more height on the cone of the left last.

The pattern for the uppers will need a few alterations. The topline at the heel needs to come up and in more for it to grab the last better, and I need to change the angle of the top of the quarters around the lacing. Brogueing has been requested on the edge of the quarters and the toe cap.

All in all, fairly good results.

The Test Fitters for the Gibsons have been made.

The lasts for these turn out to be fairly challenging, high toe shape profile and all.

I’ll post about the results of the fitting tomorrow.

The uppers are finished for making the test fitters for the Gibsons. Now I just need some time to work on them.

Here are the pattern pieces that I’ll be using to make a pair of test fitters for the Gibsons.

The outer pieces,

and the lining pieces.

Here’s a photo of the bottom finish of the Galosh Oxfords.

I should have some more photos of the shoes up in the next few days.

Lasts have been removed from the Galosh Oxfords and Insole Covers (aka Sock Liners) have been hot foil stamped with some branding and inserted into the shoes.

I will post some photos of the finished shoes in the next few days.

Here are a few photos of the finish work on the Galosh Oxfords.

Applying edge ink.

Ok, I’ll be honest, this is a staged photo. It’s way too difficult to stop in the middle of this step and snap a one handed photo.

And another staged photo!

The nasty looking yellow solution in the jar is a bottom stain made in my workshop. Actually, with the expection of a stick of hard black wax, all of the finishing solutions used on these shoe were made in the workshop.

The Wholecuts

The Blake Stitch (Bologna Construction) Slip-Ons