Why you Need To Target Your Design and Free Shoe Pattern Guide To Start Your Work

 Since I started making my shoe pattern tutorials on my YouTube channel I was asked often about how to cover the last  with adhesive tape to easy apply any shoe design on that last. Therefore I decided to write a short guide about it. In this guide I go through each step how I cover the last to make your life easier. 

By the end of this post you will know how to cover the last like a Pro, no wrinkles, no wrong lines, do it right from the start!

6 Best Value Shoe Pattern Making Tips for 2014 that I Use Every day

Happy New Year Everybody! As I waked up early today after new year's celebrations I wanted to launch this year with very optimistic, happy start blog post to benefit all of my readers, In this post I will give away 6 best value Pattern Making Tips that I use in every shoe model that I do, and it helps me to avoid mistakes and saves my time like nothing else. But before we get to that, I want to take a minute to thank you all for the past year.

A lot happened in 2013 with this blog and this community, we definitely got bigger which is amazing in my opinion and what is more amazing and what I am personally thankful for is the support I get from you. I launched Shoemaking courses online 3 month ago, with no expectations what so ever and to see so many people joining the courses was just amazing, thank you all and I promise to keep the content in the highest level and help your growth and creativity.

Get Your Shoemaker's Tools For Great Price This Week

Today, I opened one of a kind SALE for shoemaker's tools on my shoemaking courses online store. At this sale you are able to purchase shoemaking tools in very low prices for the items presented on this sale. The sale is time limited and will be over in 6 days from the launch. It means that it will be closed at 12 December. 

Most important condition of this sale is Everything or Nothing:

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 :

Shoemaking Online Courses Registration Is Now Open!

Three weeks have passed since my last post and the reason for that is that I was a very busy bee, and this time it's all doing with MAKING SHOES BLOG. Now when my collection is ready and it's on a roll, I am fully committed to you my dear readers.
In my last post I announced that I'm planning an online shoemaking courses, and the feedback that I got from all of you was incredible, you helped me understand what courses are needed, and some of them were way far from my primary plan. Since then I'm tightly working on the courses, and they building up in this massive stream of content that I'm very confident and excited about.
So, here we are three weeks later and I'm super stoked to announce

MAKING SHOES ONLINE COURSES REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN