Day 5 : Here’s a Quick Way To Make Homemade Leather Print

The marathon week is came to an end and today I have the last tutorial from this series for you. I hope this week was beneficial and real kind of a marathon for you, it was sure a race for me, making those tutorials every day and I'm sure my family will appreciate the fact that it is all over now. Although it was not a simple task, I really wanted to make things more clear, and that each chapter from the book will be perfectly explained in details. I will continue to explore the chapters from the book in the community page at Google+, so we could move on, and I do have exciting plans for the near future  but let's keep it till the next post.

Day 4: How You Know You Made The Correct Pattern Or How To Avoid Most Common Mistakes?

Today my post is dedicated to a very important moment in the process of making patterns. Surely each of you wondered what is the right way to attach adhesive tape to a cardboard that you just taken down from a last . Many of you have asked me about it, and today I'll show you the most accurate and easiest way (this is so simple that you would not believe!).
In fact, this is the first condition for correctness of your patterns, even before the gold points (2nd paragraph from the book), when the basic pattern is attached in the right angle, matching height of the heel. No matter if you can find the right golden points and drew correctly your design by them, it will not save from the future problems with the pattern if you attached the adhesive tape pattern to the cardboard incorrectly.

Lets begin:

1) The most important thing is to determine the correct height of the heel of your shoe. I already showed it in the first post of our marathon week in the "boot construction using the gold points", but as my Russian grandmother says ,"Repetition is a mother of teaching". So to determine the height of the heel, put a pencil under toe area of the last and measure the height from the heel to the ground .

2) Draw on cardboard two perpendicular lines and mark the height of the heel on the vertical line (point D). After removing adhesive pattern from the last, attach it in the way that the end of the heel at the point H1 coincides with the point D, and Point F connects with the horizontal line. 

Remember to attach the pattern in such a way that in the distance H1F would not forme folds, otherwise your pattern at this point will be less than it should be, and upper will be hard to last. For example, the pump pattern will be open at the sides.
You're probably familiar with this phenomenon, and it is precisely because the pattern is shorter in the bottom than at the top, so the sides of your shoes are loose, too open, and it have nothing to do with you lasting skill.



3) After making the necessary additions to the pattern for lasting,

 cut out your pattern out of leather or paper, as I do it and pull it on the last. You will see that the pattern is well fit your last. 

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Well, now after reading the entire post you know how to avoid unnecessary mistakes, but I know you have more questions on a subject, so post your comment bellow.

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Attention : Blogpost Email Not Delivered?!

This is not the third day tutorial and don't worry it's coming later today and it is one that you don't want to miss, I promise.
I'm posting now this mini-post because I got an important email from a couple of my subscribers, saying that for some time they don't get my post delivered to their email. I checked that right away, and apperrently there was some technical issue with feedburner.com (email service) delivering some of the email. Hopefully now it all is fixed, but if you still don't have post delivered to your email, please let me know.
Another important issue that is happening now, is getting the RSS feeds of my blog through Google Reader now is finished as Google reader is no longer operating. My suggestion to you, if you like to read your RSS feed is Bloglovin  and you can follow the blog by clicking the link bellow and follow.

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Another great way to always get notifications about new posts is Shoemaking & Creative community on google + and you are welcome to Join.
As I closed my Facebook "Making Shoes" page, I'll be updating news and other shoemaking ideas that can't be included in  my post on Google +, so you have a good reason to join. 

  
Hold on till evening : today tutorial will be 

"How you know you made the correct pattern or how to avoid most common mistakes?"

See you later!

Sveta Kletina

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You can find more information about me at :

www.sk-shoes.com

http://pinterest.com/svetakletina/my-designs-timeline/

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http://www.youtube.com/user/SKDEZIGN?feature=mhee

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Day 3 : How To Transform Your Sandal Last Into Platform Sandal Last

Today is the third day of our marathon and the theme of the day is : How to convert sandal last into a platform last.    

 The sole surface of the platform last is always must be flat, it doesn't have curves which are true, as our foot has them and so as most of lasts. Therefore, to work with platform you must have a special last with flat bottom. In today's tutorial I will show you how any shoe (I show an example of sandal last) can be transformed into a last for platform shoes.

1. Note the curve, which is on the last, which I mentioned before. 

2. Now this curve should be removed, that is to make a flat surface of the sole. For this, I must grind the bottom of the last with a file, holding the hand 90 degrees straight so the grinding will be even through the all surface, so you wouldn't get one edge of the last lower than the other. So grind slowly and constantly check if it's even by applying the ruler to the last as shown in the picture below.

Day 2: How to adopt your design to Golden points by bending some rules?

 

Knowing the gold points is surely makes your life as designer or shoemaker much easier but knowing them, memorizing them will not solve your problem unless you making the same boot over and over again. You must know how to use this knowledge, to create your own formulas, because each design that you may have will extend the possibilities that those points gives you, and you need to know how to fix it. One thing for sure, it comes with experience and creative approach, not to mention other aspects that are influence your design, like type and correctness of the last you use, type of leather, it could be too thick, to stretched, no stretched the best advice I can give you is, learn it, use it, make it your own.

Here are couple questions and answers that emerged from the book:

•  How to stay in the safe area (golden points) but exceed the classic last borders. (from chapter 2 , 4)

Visually divide the last into equal segments, so you will be able to work in the last proportions:

For example: Let's say I want to make asymmetric Channel shoes with geometric forms in the pattern. To do it I visually divided the last into 4 even segments, that are created by lines LM,KK1 ( middle of the last length), FC.

By creating volume in the heel( 2 segments- LM, KK1) I need to make this volume equal in other two segments KK1, CF according to the geometric forms of the pattern.

As you see, by doing this I work according to the rules of Golden points and I divide the last into proportional segments that are helping me to extend the boundaries of the last and in the same time staying in the last proportions. That's what I call bending the rules.

•  Selectively chose the gold points that you need to work with your design 

Shoemaking Marathon Week: Day One

After a lot of writing and answering questions for the past week, I decided that few actions need to be done. A lot of questions regarding the "Shoemaking & Techniques for Creative Footwear Design" book evolved in areas and directions that I didn't thought of them , but it is alright and I'm here to explore the book more thoroughly.
Because, nobody wants to read this post for an hour, and because I didn't wrote everything yet, and still thinking of how to explain some of the questions that you asked me or you may ask in the future, we will do it a whole week.
Here is what we will be exploring for the next three days:

* Day one: The most asked about chapter is chapter 2, the "Golden points". So, for the day one (today) I will be doing tutorial on" How to properly construct the Boot pattern according to gold points". 

* Day two : (Hello chapter 2, again) " How to adopt your design to Golden points by bending some rules". This one is for those of you who struggle with strict rules of pattern making. When your vision of design is way different from what the golden points are, and you know that if you break them, you will have some issues with your shoes. I will show you how to fix it in more creative and professional way.

* Day three: Since the chapter 6, (How to build an entire collection just with 2 types of lasts) "made the day" for some of you and that fact made my day as well, I wanted to extend this chapter ideas and that's what we going to do on the third day, " How to transform your sandal last into platform sandal last".

This is the schedule for next three days, and the rest will be updated, you are welcome to add your own questions that you had from the book, and I will try to include them as well.