New Shoemaking Video Tutorial and 2nd Submission

Currently, I have over 45 full length shoemaking video tutorials on my YouTube channel and I am so glad you gave a good welcome to previous ,voice over tutorial, that I made a couple of weeks ago. So, not to ruin a good thing, today I have a another great video tutorial for you.

How to check your shoe pattern from paper on the last

A quick announcement before I will move on to the tutorial.

I opened this week the second registration for Footwear Design Courses: Knowledge- Design- Freedom. ( This is online video course)

Course details:

^{The course : 14 Lessons
Lesson length: 45-60 min
2 Lessons a week}

^{Introduction : Understanding  footwear design or what is it mean being footwear designer.}

^{Footwear as complete product.} 

^{Don’t wait for inspirations-  Use your technique knowledge.} 

^{Technical knowledge as a key for creativity.
Full Shoe models map} 

^{Simplify the rules of pattern construction:
Workshop: 6 types of shoes
Learning the rules
Construction on the last}

^{How knowing the rules of construction will help you to create any design.}

^{10 crucial points on your last to avoid mistakes in your design.}

^{Freehand Pattern Technique-  Intensive workshop}

Registration and more information about the course please follow the link below.
Footwear Design Courses: Knowledge- Design- Freedom

Old Shoemaking Tutorial But New Me

I received an email this week from one of this blog readers. He sow one of my many free videos that I have on my YouTube channel , but got little bit confused. Well, the videos are long, I know, and you really need to be patient, I guess!
What can I say, it was made something like two or three years ago. I was just starting this blog and all I wanted to do is to share information and I did. You welcome to watch all the 40 free videos from my channel .
But I do understand his difficulty, especially as back then I had a huge fear to overcome, to record my voice on the videos, not even to film myself but just to talk in those videos was terrifying  for me. First of all, English is not my native language and it is really hard sometimes to express yourself, so I preferred to place a music, which many of you complimented me about and to add text, just to make things understood.
Time have passed and I followed my passion and it is almost 8 months now, since I started Shoemaking Courses Online. My confidence grown, my ability to be in front of the camera, and not to die, because that is pretty much what I thought will be, turned out to be great experience of my life.   

So now, going back to what I have already done, the least that I can do is to try and fix some of those videos. Today, I present to you short video tutorial, from my full, 1 hour tutorial on How to make shoes: making pattern with folds, "How to transfer shoe pattern from the last to the cardboard". 
Yes, it is in normal speed and what a surprise I explain everything myself. Enjoy, and comment below if you had a fear to overcome and how you did it?

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New Collection, new projects and creativity in my life

As it was long coming and I did stretched this as I possibly could, but I am finally in a stage of finishing my new footwear collection. I think it's a first time in years that I had the total idea and final designs for my collection even before trial and error, frustration, sleepless nights etc.. This time I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but as funny as it sound I couldn't started until recently, I was too busy. Between getting my orders done, my online courses, lecturing in a local College and designs for a clients, nothing gives me such a satisfaction and excites me as transforming my ideas and designs from my head into a real pair of shoes. That is a great feeling, that reminds me why I started design shoes in the first place. 

Footwear Design course- Registration Is Now Open!

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN

As promised at the beginning of this week I just opened registration for my intensive online design course.

Footwear Design Course: "Knowledge -Technique – Freedom"
It is a practical intensive design course, it is an workshop to gain you the knowledge and advantages you need to create shoes that you want to create, if it's for you or for your client.
As I mentioned in a previous post , this course will be more about doing then talking. Without any expectation for your inspiration, ideas or any other excuses. Here you will come up with your own shoe designs working through your knowledge in footwear construction that you will gain during this course.
I simplified the process and understanding of shoe construction, so it will suit for beginners in footwear design as well as for more experienced designers and shoemakers.

This course consists of 9 lessons with duration of 45-60 minutes, 2 lessons a week. The cost of the course is 120 Euros.

The course will open in 25 March The course will launch on March 25th.

The course price:

Early bird registration : Until March 15 = 100 €

Members early birds: = ( Use your discount code) 55 €

Regular price : 120 €

Members: = 70 €

Here are short summary of the Footwear Design Course:"Knowledge -Technique – Freedom"

Introduction : Understanding footwear design or what is it mean being footwear designer.
Footwear design or Footwear styling
Footwear as complete product
Don't wait for inspirations- Use your technique knowledge
Technical knowledge as a key for creativity
Shoe world guide
Simplify the rules of pattern construction:
Workshop: 6 types of shoes
Learning the rules
Construction on the last
How knowing the rules of construction will help you to create any design
10 crucial points on your last to avoid mistakes in your design
Freehand Pattern Technique- How to simplify the most complicated shoe patterns. This technique will allow you to explore your creativity by giving you the right tools and freedom in design.
Shoemaking rules and freehand pattern workarounds

Intensive workshop:

Click the link for full list

The course will be hosted at Shoemaking Courses Online.

For questions you can contact me : Here



Kind regards,

Sveta Kletina








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Unlock Your Creativity At Footwear Design Course

When you are working on the design of your shoes, going deep inside of your imagination, choosing the right lines, navigating your mind between the emotions, looking for inspiration, giving meaning to your design, understanding what you are doing, exploring the unexplored, ..... do you do that or is it sound little bit strange to you?

I'm not trying to make fun of this or another way to create design, but working, learning and exploring footwear design for years I could not ignore some patterns of behavior and understanding of what is footwear design .

Black Friday Sale and Making Heel Cover Tutorial

My current work schedule feels like one long working day, balancing between making my own shoe orders, shoemaking courses and freelance collaborations takes time, so each day I am thankful that I do what I love, because there is no way I would be able or willing to do anything else. This post was a long coming and I have a lot  to share with you .

I am very proud to announce that, last week " VIRTUAL SHOE MUSEUM" posted a blog post about  "shoemaking courses online" . Very detailed, great post , and it was kind of a weird for me , in a good sense, as a longtime follower of this website to be on it. Not just with my shoes, that  were listed on this website recently as well, but with what I do with this blog and with Shoemaking courses online, something that I am very proud of, something that I invested all of myself and I believe makes a change.  Thanks to that post, since last week, shoemaking courses online getting a massive flow of new members and interest of fashion bloggers, who discover this website for the first time, and that is just great. Big thank you to Liza Snouk, who runs "Virtual Shoe Museum".
 You welcome to read the post in the link below.

Virtual Shoe Museum 

My YouTube channel consist more then 40 tutorials and it's easy to get lost, specially with a new YouTube layout. Although I already published a post to help you find my old tutorials on making shoes and you can find it here " Here is a Post That Will Help You Find my Older Tutorials" I still have been asked to show tips and tricks that I already did, so here is the link again.
Recently I was asked by a member to show how to make a pattern and actually to create heel cover from leather. My answer to him was, that I already did, in  " How To Make Rihanna 2012 X Factor Shoes by Yourself " but he couldn't find it, and when he did, said it was too fast for him and he is use to normal speed tutorials that I have on the platform and why there is no voice over, just music.
 It made me think on all of the changes that happened since I started this blog and maybe there is a problem, specially with my long tutorials that I made and I defiantly need to take care of it. So here you go, a short ( 20 min) tutorial on "How to Make a leather cover for a heel".  It's in a normal speed, but there is no me talking like on my courses, maybe next time.

Great Shoemaking Solutions and Launching New Shoemakers Tools Store Online

Let's say you lasted your shoes, you made your heels, attached your outsoles, you have your new, done, finished pair of shoes. Only thing left to do is to take them off the last. Last week as I finished my Ballerina Shoes Course I encounter a dilemma, maybe not a dilemma, but I wanted to figure out a simple solution for my students to take the shoes off. Now, if you don't have the proper shoemakers tool you can use the hook method: you make a hole in the last, place the hook inside it and using the strength of your feet and rope ,you pull the last out. I find that method not that comfortable to say the least. I wanted to come up with something that anyone can make in their home fast, simple and cheap. So in my last lesson of the Ballerina Course I drilled a hole in a side of my old, heavy sewing machine and placed through it, 12 cm screw with 1 cm thickness, so it will fit the top hole in my last. That's it, simple is this.

You need screw and something heavy, so it will not move when you will pull the shoe. I know many shoemakers with their own solutions and tools for this and other process. So if you have, or come up with your own solution for this or other problems, you are welcome to share it on this blog.
Now as I promised shoemaking courses online platform will launch online store for shoemaking tools and supplies by the end of this week. As I still working on assembling more tools and more suppliers to enrich the platform more products will be added in the next two weeks.

In the online store you will find items like knifes, shank board, texon board, reinforcement tape, topline tape, awl, hammer, shoemakers rasp, lasting pincers and shoe lasts. More products will be added as we go and depending on the demand.
On the launch day of the store I will place 3 types of used lasts on sale in very low price. When I say used, I mean that some worked been done with them, so there are traces of nails and few scratches here and there. You can judge by yourself on the pictures below.

Ballerina Shoes Course and What Else Shoemaking Platform Have to Offer

One of my favorite courses that I teach on my shoemaking courses online for beginner level is about to end soon. It came out unexpected long, because I tried to explain and to show as much details as I could, so that you can easily make your first pair of shoes. The most important thing to me was to make it clear and understandable,  all the  shoemaking process, so that  in the you will be able to make pattern, to sew, to last, and to create heels by yourself. Only one lesson separates us from complete pairs of shoes where you will learn how to finish them, how to take them of  the last and to make the insole. You can see below some sneak peeks from this course. 

Quick note:  Because many of you don't have good connection with internet and asked me about this possibility. In short a time I plan to unit all these lessons together (it is more than 10 hours long) to create a DVD or eBook of Ballerina Shoes . It will take me time, but I will do it and you will able to purchase full ballerina shoes course on my blog here.

 Another exciting process which I'm working on now is that I'm negotiating with suppliers of various materials and tools for shoemaking , so in a really short time (maybe even next week)  they will be available on www.shoemakingcoursesonline.com.  I've been working on it for some time but I could never get it done , but now with the development of my new platform it has become finely possible to do it.
My faithful members of this platform, makers, shoemakers  will benefit from this even more; they will be able to purchase instruments and materials for shoemaking with a member discounts. And now since I have accumulated a lot of work because I was sick last week, I need to get back to work.

Good luck and have a nice day!

Sveta Kletina

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The Secret Material That Will Help You To Change Your Last Form

Finaly my shoemaking courses online started and now I have very busy daily schedule. I am not technical person and in the first week of courses I had too much unexpected technical issues that just got me off balance. One note to myself for the future, always work with professionals, it will save you a lot of time and health. Don’t worry I finally got on the right track with the help of my wonderful husband and everything working as I planned, in a very fast mode, but important thing is that it is working! In one of the first lessons that I made on the shoemaking platform I talk about one of the most wonderful materials that I found and use for shoemaking purposes and I want to mention it here on my blog as a treasure tip for all you shoemakers.
This wonderful material as epoxy glue. / A very useful update to this post! It called epoxy putty in US and you can find it in Home depot. Thank you Natasha/ It's soft like clay, and when you mix it well it becomes solid like a rock. Honestly this material is not intended for use in the footwear industry, but I found it very useful when
you have only one type of last and want to work with another last. For example you have round toe last and dream about pointy toe last to make classical pointy shoes. So in this situation the epoxy glue will be a perfect solution for you to change your last with it. The greatest thing that actually drove me to make an entire course about it is, that you can remove it from your last when you don't want pointy toe last anymore. It is removable, and that is what important. After it, if you want to change your rounded toe last to the square toe last, you can do it as well. Sure there is a method and technique working with this material, and you need to know how to make both lasts (right and left) identical , and I show it in my course.
I personally use the epoxy glue very often in my work when I want to experiment with
shapes of my existing lasts and change them. That’s why the first lesson in advanced level of my shoemaking courses I dedicated to this so useful and great ,in my opinion , theme. This method of changing you last's design will open your mind about the possibilities that you have with your existing last and you will have the appetite to create sometimes even bizarre forms of last ,as it happened to me. For example, I want to show you some of them, that I made first with epoxy glue and then copied them in plastic for bigger scale manufacturing.

  

This is the example of shoe design which I made for this "crazy" last.

It's only the beginning of my big program that I planned for my courses. During creating of each lesson I constantly emerging new ideas for courses, so stay in touch!

Do your last looks boring to you? What would you like to do with your last? What form would you like to create. Share your thoughts bellow in a comment, what last or shoes would you really want to create?

Please Visit The Only Shoemaking Courses Online Platform at: www.shoemakingcoursesonline.com

Have a great weekend,

Sveta Kletina

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The Secret Of Having Multiply Lasts Collection With Only One Last

Almost all women like to wear high heel shoes and even those women who cannot walk with high heels or don't like them, still have in their wardrobe pair of high heels for a special occasion. I am too a sinner and I have many pairs of high heels in my closet. Our need as women to wear them is very obvious, and it is the visual impact of high heels on our physical appearance. We become taller, slimmer and as a result of it we feel more feminine and more attractive. This is despite the fact that everyone knows that wearing high heel shoes deforms the women feet. We know it, but we are ready to suffer to become more "attractive" and younger. You can notice it on some women or seen it in some horror photographs of deformed feet from years of wearing high heels shoes and shoes with pointed shape, where the fingers are clenched and squeezed together.
On such feet you will see the inflamed bone, on the big toe, increased of his normal size and it called "Bunion" by the medical terms. There is more horrible deformations to the foot, but I'm not going to talk about them now.
Almost all women over the age of 50 have the big toe bone sticking out (and not just them). But I will tell you a secret! Do you know that you can have "Bunion" when you wear flip-flops or opened heel sandals without heels stripes?! Who knew, right?
The fact is that during walking, besides carrying the load of our body, we hold the flip-flops by our fingers and this creates double burden on the bone, and it increases with time. Yes, yes, I know, it's also one of my favorite summer shoes and I wear them too. But we must understand that our feet are so sensible, and to keep them healthy we have to know what to wear and how it will influence our feet.

Now let me give you an example. You wear ballerina shoes or pumps all the time and it always fit you perfectly and now suddenly for some reason every new pair of shoes are uncomfortable and you feel this pressure on the inner side of the foot. The thing is that maybe you didn't pay attention to your feet or maybe you did, but didn't do anything about it and now you have the "Bunion". It's not so visible to you, because you don't remember how it was before and bones are not so much sticking out, but a slight increase has occurred. So for those of you who feel uncomfortable in your own shoes, I want to help you out and show you, how you can easily adopt your last to your feet.

1. Find on the last the center of the big toe bone. It is the widest place on the last in the inner side (gold point A). 

2. Attach adhesive tape to this place and draw ellipse form so it center will match the point A. It's represent your big toe bone .

3. Made a pattern of it in usual way. 

4. Cut it out from the thick leather. I used thin veg-tan leather with the thickness about 2-2,5 mm.

5. Skive around the edges on the inner side of the leather. 

6. Anoint contact glue and attach it to last. 

7. Use the send paper to smooth the leather piece so it will create a smooth line with the last .

8. After you finish it wax it. 

Using this way you will fix this problem. This is just a short tip of an full course on "How to change your last in reversible way to fit your design" . It is a great solution when working with multiply designs but having only one precious last, this way you can change the last form and then get it back to its original appearance. The courses will be launch on membership platform at www.shoemakingcoursesonline.com, more information you can find here.

If you find this information useful and you own one or two precious lasts, let me know with the comment below " I need this information".



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More Shoemaking Courses For Members Only

Finding the right time or anytime at all to write a post is kind of a big deal this week, and all do with shooting the online courses. I'm not complaining , not at all, but I had no idea, how hard it is. Although I have big experience shooting my YouTube videos, this is nothing like that. Light, sound, shooting, close ups, full shoots and all a lot of terminology that I don't understand gave me a different perspective and a huge amount of respect to people of this profession and my team, thank you. 

Now, if I'm in a thank you mode, I want to thank you all who pre-registered for the courses, and your great comments, it's a wonderful feeling to hear people excited about something you working on. So it made this difficult task to be exciting as well.

As I promised here is more updates for online shoemaking courses that I'm working on :