I did this course in April but for some reason took ages to get nice photos. Literally the minute my sandals had cured, the warm weather went away and never came back.
Lisa runs the workshops out of Brisbane but has them in various cities. When I signed up for the course I was struggling to make any long term plans and booking this one month in advance was the riskiest move I could think of! Here is her website.
The class size is pretty small and Lisa requested that we make measurements of our feet and choose a style ahead of time. We had flexibility to change out minds, and I did - opting for multiple straps instead of a single slide.
We started by gluing the pigskin to the underpiece of the foot.
Then we built our straps which takes ages and lots of trying on.
Once I had my straps half done, the sandal wouldn't fit onto the plastic shoe model anymore so I had to just hold them.
I hadn't meant to make the easiest sandals in the class, but my three straps were really straightforward so I had lots of time sitting around while the other class members went through the long process of getting the leather bits trimmed and glued in place.
Then we glued on the bottoms - Lisa cut the edges so we wouldn't mess up.
After that, we applied a nice supportive rand, which makes it look very professional.
Finally the heels!
Because of all the trying on, of course the pigskin lining of my shoes was already a bit dirty...
I like these sandals. It is cool to have something you made yourself. The shoemaking process, it ends up, is really straightforward, not unlike sewing. It mainly just includes different supplies and different tools.
But they aren't broken in yet so I don't know if they will become comfortable as the leather stretches. I also think that technically, the pigskin sole should have been larger - these were prepared ahead of time by Lisa according to our foot measurements. They were exactly the size of my feet. Well, my foot is wider above its base and so I think about 2-3 mm extra room is necessary for comfort - as it is, my actual foot and step is onto the edges of the sandal because they are cut so precisely to the line of the bottom of my foot. They have not been comfortable to wear.
It would be interesting to do a course elsewhere and see how someone else's teaching and supplies compare.
Also - my class was the last one where we used leather bottoms for the sandals - Lisa was planning to go to rubber soles after this. So I had the soles rubbered by my local shoe guy.
Lisa runs the workshops out of Brisbane but has them in various cities. When I signed up for the course I was struggling to make any long term plans and booking this one month in advance was the riskiest move I could think of! Here is her website.
The class size is pretty small and Lisa requested that we make measurements of our feet and choose a style ahead of time. We had flexibility to change out minds, and I did - opting for multiple straps instead of a single slide.
We started by gluing the pigskin to the underpiece of the foot.
Then we built our straps which takes ages and lots of trying on.
Once I had my straps half done, the sandal wouldn't fit onto the plastic shoe model anymore so I had to just hold them.
I hadn't meant to make the easiest sandals in the class, but my three straps were really straightforward so I had lots of time sitting around while the other class members went through the long process of getting the leather bits trimmed and glued in place.
Then we glued on the bottoms - Lisa cut the edges so we wouldn't mess up.
After that, we applied a nice supportive rand, which makes it look very professional.
I like these sandals. It is cool to have something you made yourself. The shoemaking process, it ends up, is really straightforward, not unlike sewing. It mainly just includes different supplies and different tools.
But they aren't broken in yet so I don't know if they will become comfortable as the leather stretches. I also think that technically, the pigskin sole should have been larger - these were prepared ahead of time by Lisa according to our foot measurements. They were exactly the size of my feet. Well, my foot is wider above its base and so I think about 2-3 mm extra room is necessary for comfort - as it is, my actual foot and step is onto the edges of the sandal because they are cut so precisely to the line of the bottom of my foot. They have not been comfortable to wear.
It would be interesting to do a course elsewhere and see how someone else's teaching and supplies compare.
Also - my class was the last one where we used leather bottoms for the sandals - Lisa was planning to go to rubber soles after this. So I had the soles rubbered by my local shoe guy.
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