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








Follow my blog with Bloglovin

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 .

How to upgrade your shoe pattern in 30 minutes

This post will be short and informative as possible. In my last two posts 6 Best Value Shoe Pattern Making Tips for 2014 that I Use Every day and Why you Need To Target Your Design and Free Shoe Pattern Guide To Start Your Work I delivered very quick but powerful solution tips for you to improve you shoemaking skills. All those guides you can find at www.shoemakingcoursesonline.com in Free Tips & Guides page or following the link in the bottom of this post and sign up for the email list there so you will get direct link for every new update to your inbox.

As my last two posts had so much success and interest, I will not disappoint you and this one will be the same.
upgrade your shoe pattern in 30 minutes

Upgrade your shoe pattern in 30 minutes

Do you have shoe pattern, which you already been using over and over again? Do you want to upgrade it with minimum time and maximum effect? You can upgrade your existing pattern with small changes. Those changes are, adding folds to your pattern. You may create them in almost any place of your pattern, it will look great especially close to the top line and will make your pattern look more complicated when it's not. One condition of creating folds is to hide them under another detail, which will be stitch to it. That's why I added stripe to the top line in my tutorial. This stripe and the detail, where creating folds, this is all your changes in the pattern, because you don't need to make changes to your lining. It will be your guide to correctly assemble the upper with folds.

This is just a short but very useful guide that I use constantly in my own work, you can apply it to your pattern and see the big change that it makes. The wonderful thing about it is, that it takes just 30 minutes or less. Follow the link bellow to see this guide and check my full shoemaking courses online at www.shoemakingcoursesonline.com
Starting new cool course next week, " Fashionable Ballet Flat Shoes From Fabric" check out the pics.

Click here to view the full guide.

Have a nice week!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

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

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

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

Follow my blog with Bloglovin