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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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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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.

Shoemaking & Techniques for Creative Footwear Design

Finally my book came out. On the way of its creation was a lot of technical difficulties, especially at the last moment, and I sorry for this delay. But today finally I present to your attention my "Shoemaking&Techniques For Creative Design" book and I'm so excited , as if going to school for the first time, because it's my first  book, in which I share with you my thoughts and knowledge about shoe design that I gain through the years, working as a shoe designer and making my own collections.

Here are few screenshots from the book:

This is just a short glimpse for the 47 pages book. I talk a lot about design techniques, few approaches to the subject, so you would be able to find your own way. Actually it is very difficult to label yourself as one kind of designer or a shoemaker as I see it, because to create you need to have the passion and urge to try different techniques, different methods and thats what I try to do in this book.
One of the most important chapters in this book is the "GOLD POINTS" for creating correct patterns and for me, knowing that it is kind of restricted area for most designers just because they lack this information, gives a great pleasure to share it with you. I explain all the points in the book for different types of shoes and how to use it in shoe design.

Another exciting chapter, (they all are useful and exciting in my eyes!) is the "Building an entire collection just with 2 types of lasts". I explain the differences in types of lasts and their properties that will help you to reflect it in creating entire collection just with one or two lasts. Using this knowledge and creative design techniques that I present in this book, you will be able to do it.In the book I present one of my past collections that was made only with two lasts, and it looks very different in every model.  
 As well, this is the first time I share new technique that I had developed, the "Freehand Pattern Construction Technique".  It is result of my long time search for easy and more affordable ways to create shoe patterns that would allow me to create complex and interesting designs and patterns. I actually use it to create all of my collections and in this book I share this technique with you.
The book also contains a video tutorial for Freehand Technique and I will show you how to build a 3D pattern in most shortest and easiest way. In the video I'm making 3D element of a rose in the toe area, here's the pic.

I look forward to your feedback and to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you all for support and for great online friendship.
I will run this book with a discount of 20% for the next 2 days, specially for readers of this blog.

The book is in online PDF format, and it's will be downloaded directly from my blog. You will be able to find it here on this post and in the "Full shoemaking Guides" tab at the top of my blog (navigation bar).

Here is the book :

                                                                                          buy                  

Table of contents

Introduction  3

1. Classic models of shoes and why you need them.               4

2. Must know pattern points or the secret of making correct pattern from the first time.                                                                10

3. Don't wait for a muse, rely on design process techniques. 21

4. The bad the good and the ugly- 3 Methods of footwear design.                                                                                                    24

5. Shortcut to creative footwear design - Freehand Pattern Construction Technique.                                                          34

6. How to build an entire collection just with 2 types of lasts.                                                                                                                                                         35

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Creative Pattern Making As a Key For Wining Design

This post is all about my new book that is coming out by the end of next week, which I'm very excited about. I'm very confident and thrilled about this one, because it has to do more on my field of expertise that is footwear design.

As my experience taught me, the best designs are emerges from creative pattern making. In this book I will give away my best tips on how to create any shoe design, from creatively approaching pattern making if you want to build entire collection or just a shoe for yourself and much more. I will probably place more updated information about the book, before launching it on the blog, so stay tune.

More than that, I finally updated my last collection, so I wanted to share this one with you as well. The concept behind it and what inspired me to create it the way it is.  

ABOUT  "REVEAL RAW" 

Now You Can Make Midsole By Yourself And Say Goodbye to Your Supplier

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Today I decided to share with you one of my "gold" tutorials: how to do mid-sole by yourself. I mean gold in sense that it helped me a lot in the beginning of my way as an independent shoe designer.  As it usually happens at the beginning ,no suppliers want to work with you, because you don't order big quantities. So to make my dream come true (make  my own shoes) I had to come up with a technique of manufacturing mid-soles in home, by myself, as they call it DIY.

How to make shoe pattern with folds

It is example for basing sandal with folds

 I want to show you how to make this kind of pattern. This is one of the existing methods.

Basic model

1) Tape adhesive tape on the shoe last , draw a sandal , cut and paste the  adhesive tape pattern on a piece of cardboard. Reference to the first 2 points in the previous post about the T Strap Sandals.

The Secret of Correcting pattern shoes by Trippen

Today, luckily I met a friend, shoes designer, he is old school and, of course, I pop the question. I could not get  the exact springing of vamps in the pattern for  men boots. And when I saw him in the parking lot, I asked how to? what am I doing wrong? He explained it to me, while leaning casually on a car, drawing on a piece of paper. I just had to move a point not on the top center of the line, just on the bottom line. Her is the video on how to do it right.

He gave a few more tips, which I will soon share on my YouTube's  channel:

Behind the scenes of shooting